A Demon's Heart
by sadistic-neko
Summary: Sora and Roxas were two orphaned teens that were picked up off the street by an unlikely pair. After 13 years spent in normalcy everything begins to change. Their guardians are nothing like they originally thought and demons protect them. main Akuroku
1. Chapter 1

Sadistic-neko: Hey everybody! I hope y'all are doing well. This is my first Kingdom Hearts fic so I hope I don't disappoint anybody! Oh, and to those that are following me as an author, I promise that I'll get another chap of Tou-san up soon. This story was clawing away at my brains demanded to be set free and I've been so busy lately that typing has been the last thing on my mind.

Axel: You talk a lot don't cha?

Sadistic-neko: Only when I feel that I need to. (eyes suspiciously) Axel, you can create fire on your own so why are you playing with my incense lighter.

Axel: Because it makes you look like your house is already on fire.

Sadistic-neko: (glares then makes surprised face) Omg! There's Roxas sitting suggestively on a counter in nothing but his underwear! And he's eating sea-salt icecream!

Axel: (turns head quickly in indicated direction) Where!

Sadistic-neko: (knocks redhead out with a random bat, steals back lighter and lights some dragon's blood) That better teach him to mess with me because I'm short. (Turns to readers) Sorry for the violence on such an amazing character. I had to show him his place before he really did light my house on fire. I hope you understand. Well, I don't own Kingdom Hearts and I hope that you enjoy my newest story!

_**Drip, drip. **__I ignored the sound as best I could, holding my twin, Sora, close to me. It was hard. The cold was distracting enough as we sat there shivering in the rainy night all alone. We winced when, out of nowhere, a bright light was shining on us._

"_**Oh my god. Cloud, get over here!"**__ I heard yelled just before exhaustion took over._

The sun was too bright. In an effort to escape it, I pulled my blanket over my face. With a sigh of content as welcomed darkness surrounded I began to drift off again.

"Roxas! Sora!" one of our guardians, Leon, yelled from the bottom of the stairs. "If you don't get down here now you won't have enough time eat before you have to leave!"

At first I was just going to ignore him and sleep until he or our other guardian, Cloud, came up and _dragged_ me out by my ankles. Those plans changed in a heartbeat as I caught a whiff of Leon made. It was my second strongest addiction, blueberry pancakes.

Without a second thought, I leaped out of bed and threw some clothes, surely putting something or another on wrong. I think I broke a record, beating my brother down stairs and skidding to a stop as Leon, or as Sora and I affectionately called him, mom, put the first of the pancakes on a plate. I was practically jumping in my seat as he put it in front of me. Waiting for the syrup to run onto the wonderful breakfast pastries was the only thing that slowed me down. I lifted my head as I heard a deep chuckle right across the table from me.

"You seem well this morning." I swallowed, nearly choked on the huge mouthful, down half of my juice and practically slammed my glass down before looking back up to grin and nod at my adoptive father.

My family really was a piece of work. Cloud was a perfect example of that. The tall blonde man's appearance wasn't even the half of it. His hair defied gravity and there had been times that I swore that his deep blue eyes _glowed_. Sure, most people were scared of him when they met him, what with his obsession with black and almost emotionless face, but he really was a cool guy. At that moment, though, he wore a white t-shirt and worn jeans, his typical attire for a day at the construction site he worked at.

Leon, on the other hand, was a bit more normal looking. Well, of you ignored the long scar that went in a diagonal line between his eyebrows and across his nose. It wasn't that it was ugly or anything. If anything it enhanced the appeal of his brunette hair that went to his mid back and storm grey eyes. I wasn't even kidding when I told him that was pretty once when I was younger. There were plenty of locals at the bar he tended that would say the same thing.

Personality wise, they were almost the same. Both were so antisocial that it was a miracle for most people to get five words out of them. Sora and I couldn't see it, but we heard other people talking about and had encountered it in public settings. They both were so alike sometimes that it would seem impossible for them to love each other as much as they did. Sure, they had their fair share of fights, but what couple didn't?

Sora and I were in a whole other ball field. We looked bizarrely like them and I was almost as quiet as Cloud. Like him, I also had ridiculously spiked blonde hair that flowed in one direction and blue eyes. Some called me emo, but I just thought that I was a bit of a wallflower. It wasn't like I cut myself and wore ridiculous amounts of make-up and black. Hell, my favorite thing to wear was black and white checkered patterns, like my wrist bands. I could kinda see how they might raise a little suspicion, but I didn't really care anymore.

Sora was the hyper one. It only took him two seconds after waking up to be bouncing like a five year old on sugar. His eyes were the same shade as mine and he had slightly less spiky brunette hair. Everyone on our island loved him.

Cloud and Leon found us thirteen year prior on the streets shivering in the cold. Even though they were struggling to get by themselves considering that it seemed like they showed out of nowhere to all of the islanders, they took us in. There was argument that they were the greatest people in the world, even if they didn't believe, especially Cloud.

"You guys ready to spend the day with Cloud?" Leon asked as he sat down with a cup of coffee and some of his own pancakes. We nodded eagerly, trying not to choke on the food crammed into our overly stuffed mouths. It was the first day that we were going to be able to work with our father figure. It was only small things like handing people tools and carrying some of the smaller things, but we couldn't be happier to help.

"What are you going to do today? Isn't it your day off?" he paused for a moment, considering his lover's question.

"I think I'll just stay here and get some cleaning done. If I wait any longer to wash the boys' clothes they'll be solid grime." His face barely changed, but we could all see the light of amusement in both of their eyes. "Well, you all better get going."

"We'll get out as soon as we can." Cloud stood from his chair, Sora and I following his lead, and gave Leon a brief peck before heading out the door, hand raised and waving lazily. "See you when we get home."

"Bye mom!" my twin and I yelled as we ran to catch up with the elder blonde's long strides.

"Whew!" I wiped the sweat off of my brow as I put the lumber I was carrying down by the worker that had requested it. Man was it hot out!

"Thanks kid," the burly man said lifting one of the pieces up one-handed easily.

"No problem." I looked up searching for Cloud. It was getting pretty close to lunch time and he said that he would meet with us so we could eat together. I was slightly shocked when I found him. He was carrying three times the amount of weight in steel beams on _each arm_. I knew he was strong, he would have to be to get our hardheaded mom to listen to him, but wow.

"Sora!" he yelled, "What did I tell you about going near the heavy equipment!"

"Sorry dad!" the hyper brunette called back. "One of the men asked me get the tool kit he left."

"Just be careful." He let out a sigh, obvious thinking about the incident from earlier that day. The main reason he wasn't supposed to be around the huge machines was for his safety but everyone else's and the machine's. He had gone up on one to hand the operator a bottle of water and, being the epic klutz he was, tripped. In the progression of his fall, he banged the operator on the head with the bottle, hit several buttons and jerked the wheel. Needless to say, mayhem broke out and the machine almost toppled over. It was a good thing the boss was a good person or Cloud would have lost his job on the spot. "Let's go eat boys."

"Food!" We bolted past him towards the office where cold water and yummy Leon made food awaited us.

We all sat in silence, too much in bliss from the food created heaven. Leon had to be the best cook in the world. That wasn't the case when he first took us in, but man did he get good. I looked up at my other guardian and noticed something odd. After spending all of that time in the heat and carry all of that absurdly heavy stuff and it didn't look like he broke much of a sweat. Sora and I hadn't done any near as much work and we were drenched.

I was about to ask, but I was interrupted before the words could form by a sound that was sure to give me nightmares for months. It was a pain filled scream that froze my blood in my veins. A shiver went down my spine as a chilling, foreboding feeling come over me. It as if something awful and unnatural was waiting for us right outside the door. I felt as though a monster was breathing down my neck.

"Cloud?" I barely was able to squeak out. "What was that?"

Almost seeming unfazed by the sound, he looked out the window and Sora and I joined him. What met our sight was thousands of black creatures with glowing yellow eyes attacking all of the workers. Had the other blonde not have cover both my and Sora's mouths, we would have screamed as one was attack and a crystal heart flew out of him. I was shocked speechless as he turned into one of those horrible monsters. The only thing that kept me from staying in that stunned state until it was too late was the hand being removed and its owner growling fiercely.

My panicked gaze flew to Cloud and I surprised to find his eyes _literally_ glowing. They were an almost radioactive blue burning hotter than any flame I had ever seen. Never had I seen him so enraged. It was then that he pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit a number on his speed dial. All this time he was dragging us away from the window with a painfully tight grip on our arms.

"Their here," was all he said when the other end picked up. It had to be Leon. "They're fine. Yeah, I'll get them there soon, just have First Tsurugi ready when I get there. Load Lionheart, I have a feeling that it won't be long before they get there."

With that, he slammed his phone shut and gave us his most demanding look. There was no question that whatever he was about to _was_ to be heeded with _no_ exceptions. This was serious and he would be damned if we didn't know it.

"I'm going to break the window and distract those monsters. We don't have enough time to run through the building to escape so we'll jump through the window…"

"But," I interrupted, knowing full well that we were on the _fourth floor_ of the building we were in. if we jumped out that window we would end up flatter than the pancakes we ate that morning.

"No buts!" My eyes widened. That had to be the first time I had ever heard the normally calm, aloof man yell. "We are going through the window. As soon as I break you two are to grab onto and hold on as tight as you can. If you fall off you'll be in danger. Do you understand me?"

We both nodded erratically, to afraid to do anything else. This was a side of Cloud that we had never seem and we didn't know what he would do if we upset him.

"Good, now grab hold and don't let go." He kneeled down to let us climb on his broad back and we gripped onto his shoulders for dear life. It was tight, in fact, that my knuckles turned white. Once sure that we wouldn't fall off, he lifted himself effortlessly and turned toward the window. After one glance around, he raised his right arm, palm parallel to the wall the window was housed. "Firaga!"

As if enough weird things hadn't already happened, a humongous _fireball _flew from his hand and completely _incinerated_ the wall. Without missing a beat or waiting for the flames dissipate, he sprinted toward the carnage and leapt.

I swore my heart stopped for a moment as we sailed through the air and plummeted to the ground. Terror overrode me to the point that I couldn't even scream. I did let out a nervous laugh though when we landed with barely a jolt and the _insane_ man we were on bolted off of the construction cite to our house.

The trip went by impossibly fast. There was no way that any normal human could run the speed that Cloud was going. Buildings, trees, everything became nothing but an indistinct blur. Somehow, though, his breathing didn't change once. It was almost like he was taking a leisurely walk!

By the time we reached our home it was surrounded by the same creatures and I thought that nothing more bizarre could happen. Woo boy was I wrong. That was proven to me when we got close enough to Leon fighting with a huge sword that had a gun barrel on it. The thing looked like it weighed as much as Sora and me combined but he was swinging it around like it was nothing with but one hand.

"Cloud!" he cried out as soon as he spotted us, taking out at least ten monsters with one pass of his blade. "First Tsurugi is on the porch!"

He nodded, practically bulldozed through the sea of black that extended about as far as I could see and dropped us on the porch. I was about to reflexively snap but the words got caught in my throat as he picked a blade that was three times as large as the scarred man's.

"Stay here. Leon and I will fend them off. Do not let even one foot leave this porch!" With that turned around and surveyed our surroundings before yelling out to his lover and leaping an unnatural height into the air. He hovered in the air for a moment, began glowing and came down spreading his light and a shockwave everywhere obliterating everything around it. His aim was perfect considering that it stopped mere inches from the building we were hiding on.

After that point I couldn't tell you what happened. Everything became hazy from the confusion and adrenaline coursing through me. I could see all that was going on near me and yet it was also blinding. The only thing I was aware of was how my two guardians were beginning to wear out and that one of those creatures had gotten past them and was heading right for my brother an me. We both lifted our arms above our heads, trying to defend ourselves at least a little once we realized that there was no way that either adult would be able to get to us in time to save us. Just before it hit us, a blaringly white light filled the area and everything seemed to stop.

When the stars left everyone's eyes, Cloud and Leon looked at us in shock. Both my brother and I were holding some unusual key shaped weapons. Sora had only one. Its base was like a bottom of the typical house key and was yellow while the blunt looking blade extended and had a flat piece at the end that looked like a crown shape had been cut out of it.

I, on the other hand, had two. They were exact opposites of each other. One was white, with slight traces of blue and orange, and had multiple bars for the main part of it. The protrusion that made it resemble a key was much more intricate than on Sora's with multiple elegant twists in the metal. The other one was black and its blade had the appearance of a chain that had its links welded together. Like Sora's, the end piece was fairly solid.

"Keyblades," Leon muttered in disbelief. Before I could respond another of the monsters came up from the ground below me. Panicking, I swung one of the blades that magically materialized in my hand and was surprised when the black thing vaporized as the strange blade hit it.

"Wh-what's going on?" Sora screamed in fear. He never got an answer, for it was at that very time that a black cloud descended upon us and everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

Sadistic-neko: Hi everyone, sorry it took me so long to get this chap up. I was having a hard time with a story I wanted to update before this one and I've been so busy that I've had a hard time find time to _breathe. _

Sora: Oh okay. It's a god thing that you updated, I was starting to think that we were dead or something.

Roxas: If we were dead then she would have ended the story.

Sora: Oh yeah (Roxas sighs)

Roxas: How are we related again?

Sadistic-neko: (stops Sora before he can answer the rhetorical question.) Why don't you two do the disclaimer for me?

Both: Sure (looks to readers) Sadistic-neko does not own Kingdom Hearts and hopes that you enjoy her latest chapter.

I groaned as something warm and wet brushed against my hand. As much as I wanted to swat it away, the feel of a familiar figure cuddled up against me was lulling me back to sleep. Apparently what ever it was that was trying to get me up wasn't very happy with that reaction, so it pounced on me.

"OW!" I exclaimed, bolting upright. Standing half in my lap and staring at me expectantly was a strange yellow dog. Even though I was usually an animal lover, something about it just irritated me. With a glare, I shoved it off. "What did you do that for!"

The stupid thing just tilted its head to one side like it didn't understand me and turned to run out of the alley that I was laying in with Sora. If it wasn't for the deadweight clinging unto my arm I would have run after it and gave it a piece of my mind.

… Wait. When the hell did we get in an alley?

For the first time since I woke, I surveyed my surroundings. Panic began to overcome me as I realized that I had no idea where we were. The sky was dark and I was sure that we weren't any where on the island we had grown up on. My panic only increased as the previous day's events came back to me in one vicious flashback.

"Sora!" I called out, trying desperately to wake my twin. Knowing how hard it was to pull him out of slumber from past experience, I also tried shaking his shoulder.

"Mmm." I could have died from the relief I felt as he stirred. "Five more minutes mom."

I felt my eyebrow twitch. Here I was practically having a heart attack and he was just trying to snooze away more. He received a jab to his gut, a loving gift from my elbow, in response. That woke him up quick.

"Dang it Roxas!" he yelled, sitting up and rubbing his injured stomach. "If you wanted me to get up you could've just… said… so. Where are we?"

"Not sure. All I know is that it _definitely _isn't the island." His eyes lit up. Any random passerby would have had the impression that I just promised to buy him a boat full of candy or something.

"Do you think that this could be another world?" Oh, that's what he was so excited about. I could kind of understand. We had been playing with the idea of other worlds for years. It was a constant thought to us since we first heard about how our guardians magically appeared on our island so long ago. We had tried many times to ask them about it but they always managed to_ somehow_ distract us.

"Maybe." His grin grew and so did the sense of foreboding in my gut. Whatever he was about to say couldn't be good.

"Let's go exploring!" I just stared at him for a moment, unsure whether or not it was a good idea. Apparently he could sense my indecision. "_C'mon _Roxas! For all we know Cloud and Leon are wandering around here looking for us! This place can't be so big that we'll miss them, right?"

I nodded. Seriously, where the hell did he get all of that energy? Did he not know how to worry about anything? Well, my musing came to an end as I got my answer. Without a single thought, he began to run down the same alley the weird dog did, proving that, yes, he was incapable of thinking before he acted.

"Sora, wait!" I realized that yelling out was pointless. No matter what I said, he was determined to take a look around. Guess you really can't fight instinct. He was already out of the alley by the time I caught up to him.

Wherever we were looked like a town and we seemed to be in the center of it. On our right was what looked like a shop that had a sign that read "items" in big letters and in front of that were a lot of tables that I could only assume belonged to a café. Straight ahead and to our far left were doors. I had no idea where the first one went, but the one on the left said "Third district". Apparently there were multiple sections in this town. Finally, on our right was another shop.

"Wow!" I grabbed my brother's arm, knowing that he was going to run off again if I didn't. Being that I was keeping him with me, he opted to just bounce on his heels instead. "This really is another world!"

"Yes, this is another world," I said with a deep sigh. "Try no to run off without me Sora. We don't know anything about this place so it would be best if we _stay together_."

"Okay!" Contrary to what was coming out of his mouth he tried to run off again. Man did I wish I had one of those kid leashes. "Hey look! There's a store there! We should see what's in there!"

I looked in the direction he was enthusiastically pointing and saw that there was indeed another shop that I hadn't noticed upon first inspection. It had a neon sign that read "accessories" and looked like it had multiple levels. After a moment of thought I nodded.

"Yeah, let's check it out. If we're lucky someone in there may have seen Cloud and Leon or would at least be able to tell us where we are." With these words I let my overly hyped twin drag me to the building.

The first thing we saw when we entered was multiple glass cases holding various pieces of the store's merchandise a couch and a fire place. Then, as the sound of someone clearing their throat rang out through the room, we noticed the person who I assumed was the owner.

"Ya two new 'ere?" the man ask in a voice that sounded as gruff as he looked. He had short blonde hair that was combed back and blues eyes. There was a pair of goggles around his head, a pack of cigarettes under the strap, a band of some kind around his waist and he wore a white t-shirt and well worn jeans. (it was odd how similarly he was dressed to Cloud when he had work.)

"Yeah!" Sora exclaimed. "We just woke up here in the alley!"

"Where are we?" I cut in as soon as possible, know that my dope of a brother would rant about how amazing it was to be in another world if I didn't.

"This 'ere is Traverse Town. It's kinda a droppin' place fer saps thrown from their worlds fer whateva reason." He looked over his shoulder through a door that I hadn't noticed before. "'ey Vince! We got some newbies! Why dun you make some tea fer um?"

There was scuffling heard form somewhere beyond the door. At some point I thought I saw a flash of red, but I wasn't entirely sure. Eventually the sound of a kettle whistling rang out and the soothing aroma of tea wafted through the shop.

"Why dun ya sit yer asses down and, OW!" He fell forward a little as a spoon hit him in the back of his head. It appeared to have come from the other room and the gruff man must have thought so too since he gave an irritated glare to the person standing in the doorway.

To be frank, this man was astonishing. He was tall with long black hair and wore a red cape that covered almost all of his face. There was a cloth of some kind, red again wrapped around his forehead and a golden gauntlet adorned his left hand. What really stuck out to me though were the smoldering crimson eyes that just stood out of the shadows concealing his face. (To those of you like, "Hey he isn't in Kingdom Hearts!" too bad! He kicks ass so he shall be in here. If you ask me that is enough justification for adding him.)

"What have I told you regarding your language around customers?" His voice sent a chill through me. My heart was pounding in my chest just from being in his presence. It was as if it was telling me to be cautious.

"Tha' it was bad manners and scares em away." I don't know what it was, but something just made the pout the gruff man wore look _wrong_. Maybe it was the stubble.

"Then I suggest that you remember that. The next time I catch you it will be bullets instead of silverware." The blonde let out an indignant cry as the raven haired man put the tray of tea down in front of my brother and me. "Forgive my husband. Unfortunately he has spent must of his life in the company of the vulgar and uncivilized."

"It's not a problem," I said, scooting slightly closer to my brother. This guy was giving off weird vibes. I doubted that Sora could sense it. "I'm Roxas and this is my twin brother, Sora."

"I am Vincent Valentine and that ape over there is the captain, Cid Highwind. It is a pleasure to meet you." I nodded and held the energetic brunette back from hugging him. It was more for the man's sake than his. After all, he didn't seem like the kind of guy that would enjoy being hugged by some random kid. I guessed I was right considering he gave me a greatful look. "Are you two alone?"

"There were two people right by us when our world disappeared," I said holding a biscuit in front of Sora's face to distract him. We wouldn't get anywhere if he was the one talking and I wasn't stupid enough to use the sugar coated pastries. "Do you think that they ended up here too?"

"Were their hearts strong?" the blonde, Cid, asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The heartless feed off of the darkness in people's hearts," Vincent replied. "If their hearts were strong then there is a good chance that they survived the attack and ended up here too."

"Oh." I thought for another moment. The only sound that was made for a moment was Sora slurping his tea. "Well they were fighting the monsters that attack the island until everything went black."

"Really now?" Cid raised an eyebrow. "There musta been a heap of em if 'ey destroyed yer world. Not many people stand up to tha and keep their heart."

"It was really cool!" I groaned as my brother started. There was no stopping him now. "They had these really big swords and they were swinging them around like nothing! One of them looked like a gun too and was shooting fireballs!"

Sora continued his rant without noticing both men tense. I could see Cid lean forward and put his hand on Vincent's shoulder as if to steady him. Something wasn't right.

"Tell me," the crimson eyed man began. "What do they look like?"

"They're tall, though one is _really_ tall!" The brunette was completely oblivious to the change in their behavior. "He's blonde and has these blue eyes that _glow_. His hair is really spiky too. The other one has brown hair that goes to about," he began to twist awkwardly to indicate where our mother figure's hair fell to, "here. His eyes are gray and he has a scar on his face that goes from here to here." Again he indicated the length.

Before he could say anything else I gave him a hard pinch. Both men looked somewhat furious and I could have sworn that Vincent was _growling_.

"Are their names Cloud Strife and Squall Leonheart?" he still growled through clenched teeth.

"He prefers being called Leon," I replied, shocked dumb.

Before anything else could be said he turned around and stalked out the door. The entire way his body changed. He grew taller and I could see leathery wings forming on his back. When I turned to Cid he acted like this was completely normal and pulled a spear form behind the counter.

There were a few moments where even my motor mouth brother was stunned speechless. We couldn't figure out what was going on anymore. How the hell did these people know our parents? What the hell just happened to Vincent? What the hell was the spear for?

The last was the only one that we were able to verse.

"Simple," Cid said, "Ah'm gonna shove this up their asses."

"Why?" I squeaked.

"'ey've 'ad us worried sick fer thirteen damn years! 'ey jus disappeared dammit!"

"How do you even know our parents?" I asked. I mean, they had to have known them pretty well to be so worried that they'd end up pissed when they found them again.

"Vince and ah ado… wait, what did you just call them?" It was his turn to be stunned. Hell he seemed so shocked that he was staring at us wide eyed.

"Our parents. Leon is 'mom' and Cloud is dad. They found us when we were three and have taken care of us since." There was a moment of awkward silence before he burst out laughing so hard that he fell from his stool.

"Well ah'll be damned. Those two really got together! Ha!" He stayed this way until the doors slammed open and two blurs flew past us. One was yellow and the other brown. They dove behind a couch and I could practically hear their hearts pounding in their chests.

"Wait!" a voice that I instantly recognized as Leon's called out form behind the make shift barrier. "Mother Chaos, we know that you're upset with us but we can explain!"

Instead of listening he just shot some kind of energy thing at them and blew away the half of the couch that Cloud was hiding behind. Luckily for him his ridiculously huge sword blocked the attack.

Before another ball could be sent flying Cid got up and stood between them. Out of all of the people in the room he seemed to be the only one that wasn't scared shitless.

"That's 'nough. Since these two idiots brought us some grandbabies ah think tha we can listen to em before beating them."

The creature rapidly turned back to Vincent.

"What are you talking about Captain?" he asked baffled.

"Em two brats tha we 'ad been helpin' are theirs, so, as I said, 'ey brought us some grandbabies."

Sora and I both just stood there in shock. _What the hell was going on!_


	3. Chapter 3

Sadistic-neko: I'm too lazy to come up with some awesome A/N, so I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

"Would someone please tell us what's going on?" I almost yelled, glaring at every adult in the room. I could feel my eyebrow twitch as my guardians looked at me surprised. Then, in the flash of an eye Leon was on top of us, patting us down.

"No broken bones," he mumbled to himself. "Looks like just a few bruises. Good."

"Mom!" Sora whined, trying to push him off. Luckily for the both of us he backed away without a fight.

"Cloud, Leon." They both cringed. I only ever called them that when I was really pissed. There had been more than one occasion where I broke furniture and injured others when my temper got away from me. The only way that they had ever found to stop me once I reached a certain point was to knock me out and they hated doing that. "Explain. Now. What the happened at the island? Who are these people? Hell, who are _you_?"

Cloud put his hand on my shoulder, his tight grip telling me that he was ready to restrain me if necessary. Him and Leon both led my brother and me to the couch.

"Where to start?" the spiky haired blonde mused. He closed his eyes for a moment and situated himself against a wall. The brunette sat in a chair next to him and Cid took the stool he vacated earlier with Vincent sitting regally on the counter beside the cash register. "The creatures that attacked the island are called heartless. They are demons created when a human loses their heart to darkness."

"Demons?" Sora squeaked.

"Yeah. There are many kinds, and, out of all of them, heartless are ones with the least sense of self. If anything they run on only instinct. On the other hand, there are some that are fully aware of themselves. Vincent here has four of them inhabiting his body." We both looked at him in amazement. He nodded nonchalantly. "The one you saw earlier is the strongest of them, Chaos. I'm sure that you'll meet the other three, Gallian beast, Death Gigas, and Hellmasker, soon enough."

_Well_, I thought, _that explains the eerie feeling I had earlier. Not that it's gone yet._

"What about you and mom?" Sora asked. We all ignored the little sniggers coming from Cid every time that we called Leon "mom". "How come you two are so strong? Where did you learn to fight like that?"

Dad opened one eye, looking uninterestedly towards the door. Despite his appearance, though, we could all see how tense he was. If it weren't for his gloves, I was sure that his nails would have drawn blood from his palms.

"In the world that I was originally from, I worked for a company called Shin-ra. It was the most powerful single group there was. So powerful, in fact, that they had their own private army and weapons development. The most powerful members were people infused with special energy from the planet called mako and certain enhancements were surgically done to their bodies. They had strength beyond anything that normal people could comprehend. Each and every one of them could take down an army on their own. The only way that they could be told apart form average people were the glowing mako blue eyes." Now that was familiar.

"So," I began, "Were you a member of this group?"

"No." His fists clenched tighter. "I wasn't strong enough or experienced enough to become part of SOLDIER. It was my dream though, and, being the foolish teenager I was, I truly believed that they were as great as the company made them to be. I thought that it would be worth while to be a part of that; to be considered a hero by everyone I knew." He laughed bitterly. "I learned the truth the hard way. The hero of SOLDIER and everyone far and wide, a man named Sephiroth that I had befriended along with a another friend of mine, a high ranking SOLDIER named Zack, lost his mind when he found out that he was created as an experiment by Shin-ra destroyed my home town. Almost everyone I ever knew, including my mother, were killed by his hand. I was severely injured when I eventually stopped him. The professor that was ultimately responsible for it all found me interesting and decided to see what would happen if he did the same thing to me that he did to Zack and the others. There are five years that I don't remember when he was pocking and prodding and stuffing as much mako energy into me as possible. In the end, I became something new. A SOLDIER with power equal to the god-like one Sephiroth had. Eventually I joined a rebel group that opposed Shin-ra called AVALANCE. In the end, we had to save the world from the calamity that the so-called one winged angel tried to bring about. Cid and Vincent here, along with the only other survivor from my home town and childhood friend, Tifa, Aeris, Barret, Yuffie, Cait sith and a talking lion-wolf thing called red thirteen fought along side me. Oh, and Vincent, like me, was experimented on. That's how he got his demons. He was locked in a coffin for thirty years."

Sora and I stared at him wide-eyed before turning to our mother. If dad's story was that amazing, what would his be like?

"I was a Sorceress' 'knight'." His words were soft and calm. Like Cloud's, they were filled with some horrible underlying pain. "It was an agreement that we both benefitted from. She got protection and I gained enormous power, both physically and magically. In our last battle to, like with Cloud, save the world, she died. I was freed from our contract. I met Cloud when both of our worlds died as they were supposed to. His group and I all ended up on the same world. The trip pretty much hit a rewind button on us though and we were turned about twenty years younger. Cid and Vincent, being the oldest and the only ones still adults, adopted us."

Nothing was said for a while. Nobody could think of anything and the men in the room were all probably thinking of their old homes and all that they had sacrificed in their journeys. The silent, melancholy moment ended when the door slammed open and a loud voice rang through the air.

"Hey! Old man! You won't believe what I…" a girl that looked to be in her early twenties at most with short black hair and brown eyes stood at the abused door. She wore a green tank-top that showed off her belly and _short _kaki shorts. Her forehead was adorned with a headband that's ends flayed behind her as gravity caught up with them. What amazed me the most, though, was the huge four pointed shuriken that she held.

"Sora, Roxas," Cloud said slowly as he and Leon stepped in front of us. "Go hide behind Cid and Vincent."

"Why?" my brother asked. Our parents merely nudged us towards, as we now knew them to be, their "parents", never once taking their eyes off of the girl that was staring at them in shock. I hid further behind the gruff blonde as a grin split her face. I could tell that this wasn't going to end well.

"OH MY GOD!' the girl screamed. "AERIS, YOU HAVE OT GET IN HERE! CLOUD AND LEON ARE BACK AND THEY'VE HAD MANBABIES!"

The next thing I knew, the girl had knocked over both of my parental figures and a pink and brown blur had joined her. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, the blur materialized into another woman. She had long brunette hair that was tied in the back with a pink ribbon and braided down her back. Her clothes were pink and had a western theme, including a pair of leather cowgirl boots. She sat on top of dad and the other was planted on mom.

"Yo!" Cid yelled out to the two girls when my parents started turning blue. "Brat! Aeris! If anyone's killin' those two it's gonna be Vince and meh! 'hey still need ta tell us where tha 'ell 'hey've been!"

"Aw!" the black-haired girl whined. "That's not fair old man!"

"Ah dun care if it is er not!"

Mom and dad slowly got up while the two went off bickering. I cringed as they ducked the shuriken as the girl threw it and hit the blonde she was aiming for. I silently thanked the demon bearing man that pulled me away only seconds before. Soon enough Cloud, Leon and the other girl were standing next to us. She smiled kindly to my brother and me, her green eyes shining.

"Hello." She held her hand, which I had just noticed was also leather clad, out to us. "My name is Aeris. I'm a friend of Cloud and Leon's. It's a pleasure to meet you two."

"These two are Sora and Roxas," mom began, seeing that neither of us was up to talking. We were too shocked to even remember what the hell our mouths did. "Could and I found them on the world we were on when they were little and have adopted."

"Well," she bent down to look us over carefully, "they certainly look a lot like you. Are you sure that they aren't your and Cloud's manbabies?"

"I'm sure." He gave her a blank look, obviously not amused. "I can't believe that you're acting like Yuffie. Here I was thinking that you were more mature."

"Hey!" an indignant cry came from the black haired ninja that was being sat on by the captain. "I'm plenty mature!"

"Sure ya are brat." It was then that Cid looked directly at my guardians with a gaze that could have burned a hold through a five foot thick wall of steel. "Now, where the 'ell 'ave ya two lil' shits been? Huh?"

They both gulped and hid behind Aeris.

"When Hollow Bastian was overrun we just ended up on another world. It didn't have gummi ships so there was no way for us to leave. We swear!" It was creepy how together they were as they blurted this out. The goggled man just continued to stare at them for a moment before easing up the intensity and smirked. It sent chills down my spine almost as much as watching Vincent turn into Chaos did.

"So, ya two are tagether now, 'ey?" They nodded. "Ya know, the girls and I had bets on 'ow ya dense idiots would get around ta it."

"Yeah!" Yuffie exclaimed jumping up and done. How she got out from under the elder man's ass I would never know. "I bet that Cloud would be romantic for once in his life and ask Squall out to dinner!"

The two merely looked at her like she was stupid. Apparently she was _way_ off.

"Ah bet tha' ya two just wouldn' be able ta handle the sexual tension and Could would eventually jus' shove Leon inta tha nearest surface and screw him senseless." Mom's blush and dad's smirk told us all that we needed to know. Cid laughed uproariously as he collected the money from Yuffie and Sora and I ran to the nearest bathroom to hurl. We did not need to know that about our parents.

We walked back into the room just in time to hear Yuffie exclaim in surprise and knock something over.

"What do you mean the King's men are here?"

"Exactly what it sounds like," Aeris' soft voice replied. "They are searching for the 'keys' that can save the worlds and bring light back." There was a pause. "If I'm not mistaken, those two children of yours are the Keyblade bearers, are they not?"

"If that light show we saw before we ended up here was anything to go by then, yes." Mom sighed. Sora and I tensed. We had been hoping that that, at least, was a dream. We tried to just stand there and listen through the door, but it suddenly opened and we found ourselves looking up at dad's indifferent gave.

"There's no point in eavesdropping. This concerns your fate, so you may as well listen too."


	4. Chapter 4

Sadistic-neko: Hi Everyone! To those of you that were wondering, I'm not dead. The last bit of school was rough and, as per every year, I went to my Mom's house out of state pretty much as soon as it ended. They _still_ haven't gotten wireless internet like my siblings and I have _begged_ them to do so updating was impossible. (starts animatedly playing on a PSP)

Cloud: (looks at game system in author's hands) What are you playing?

Sadistic-neko: Crisis Core. Zack kicks ass! Oh, and I can't hate Sephiroth anymore. (giggles) You look funny as a drooling vegetable.

Cloud: Whatever (Walks away)

Sadistic-neko: What's his problem? … (looks to Squall) Do you want to do the disclaimer?

Squall: (sighs) Why not? (Looks to readers) Sadistic-neko does not own Kingdom Hearts and hopes that you all enjoy her latest chapter.

Sadistic-neko: Thank you, now go after your hubby, I'm sure he's brooding around here somewhere.

Sora and I sat ourselves on the couch. It was almost unnerving to have all of the pairs of eyes trained on us that were. Before long I couldn't take it anymore.

"What?" I asked with a glare to everyone in the room. "Is there something wrong with us? What the hell are 'keyblades' and who are these 'king's men'?"

"Keyblades are special weapons that are the only thing capable of destroying the heartless," Mom said looking at us gravely. "Very little is really known about them other than that. Even that is based off of legends. It is said, though, that only a select few chosen by the weapons themselves are able to wield them."

"What does that have to do with us?" my brother asked, his head tilted to the side like a dog's.

"We think that you and Roxas are the chosen bearers." Dad had his hands on mom's shoulders, rubbing them in a way that I knew from years of living with them was meant to comfort him. This made me even more tense than I had been. It took a lot to upset my mom. The last time I saw him like that was when Sora fell out of a tree trying to get a seagull's egg and broke his arm. The dope had hit head on the way down and accidentally knocked himself out. We were all afraid that he was going to die.

"Mom." The man looked me in the eye and, for the first time in my life, I saw pure, unadulterated fear in those storm clouds that had always given me comfort. "What does this mean for us?"

"You both will have to fight the heartless and seal worlds from them to save all of the worlds. They will follow you everywhere, drawn to the Keyblades' power." It felt like a heavy weight was placed on the room.

"Why are you so worried mom?" Sora asked in strained optimism. "You and dad were able to save your worlds, right? What make you think that we can't do it?"

"That's the very reason we're worried," dad said with a sigh. "We know exactly what kinds of hardships you can go through, what it's like to have the weight of every life in the world resting on your shoulders. Worst of all, we both went into our final battles knowing that it was more likely than not that we were going to die. You can ask anyone in this room, the final battle with Sephiroth was awful. Hell, Aeris was murdered before we really even knew what we were up against."

I stared at the green-eyed woman wondering how the hell it was possible for her to have died yet be standing right in front of me. After a moment I just let it drop. Everything I had ever known had been flip on its head within the last twenty-four hours so I figured that just about anything was possible.

"What about the king's men?" I was just about desperate to change the subject. If we stayed on the current one than I was sure that mom was going to die of a worry induced heart attack. "Who are they?"

"The king of all of the worlds, King Mickey, sent them to find you to help the worlds," Aeris answered with a kind smile. "If I'm not mistaken, I believe that they are the royal magician and the captain of the royal guard."

"So," Cid began out of nowhere. "Do ya two even know howta use them Keyblades?"

"Nope," Sora and I replied at the same time the way only twins can do. Everyone sweat dropped and I think mom's worry level went up about ten levels. It was then that Aeris stepped up.

"In my experience with magical weapons you typically have to call on them with your heart." As helpful as that was, we still had no idea what to do. "Why don't you try and think of everything that you don't want to lose, everyone you want to protect and wish with all of your heart for the power to keep them safe? Just close your eyes and try it."

Figuring that we had nothing to lose, we did what she said. I closed my eyes, imagining my guardians and Sora, seeing them get hurt in my head. It damn near tore my heart out of my chest and I would be damned to let it happen in the real world. I wouldn't let it! The next thing I knew, I was feeling a pull from somewhere deep inside of myself, beckoning me to call it forth. Almost instinctually, I carefully grabbed it and let its warmth envelop me.

When I opened my eyes, everyone was starring at my brother and me in astonishment. Well, everyone except Aeris and our parents. The, still somewhat, odd weight of the magical blades in my hands told me that I was successful in my summoning attempt.

"Good, good." The pink clad woman was beaming at us. "I didn't think that you would get it that quickly. Very impressive."

Before we could even think to be bashful, the door slammed open again and the ground began to shake. In my effort to stay vertical, I caught a glimpse of the door and saw that a boy, that looked to be a couple of years younger than my twin and me, was clutching onto the door frame for dear life. As soon as the shaking quieted down enough to where someone could speak without the risk of accidentally biting their own tongue off, the boy began to scream fearfully.

"Mr. Cid! Mr. Vincent! Monsters are attacking Second and Third District!"

"Dammit!" Cid swore under his breath. Vincent looked a little too distracted with loading his gun to make good with his previous threat. Before I knew it, orders were being thrown around and everyone was running around in chaos, all trying to get their own weapons.

"Aeris, Yuffie!" the raven haired man called out. "You two stay here with the boy and hold down First District! The captain and I will try and clear out Second! Cloud, Leon! You guys and the boys see if you can meet up with the King's men and clean Third! Cid and I will show you the way!"

Not one person questioned their orders. With military precision we all bolted out the door. With a sharp turn my grandparents, parents, brother and I ran around the building and up a flight of stairs that I hadn't seen when we first woke up on this new world.

"Doesn't that one door go to Third District?" I asked as we passed through a door that was adorned with a sign that read "Second District". Almost as soon as the doors were opened, we were hit by a huge wave of the black creatures that had destroyed our island and more that wore armor.

"Yeah," Cid yelled over his shoulder as he stabbed several heartless at once, effectively making kabob out of them. "But they're sealed up tighter than a Shin-ra vault. We 'ad to lock it up to keep first district safe."

"Duck!" Dad yelled, sword raised for a powerful swing. Without another thought, my twin and I ducked, narrowly avoiding the huge blade. "Mom! Are you sure that bringing the boys was wise?"

"Yes." I was amazed as I watched the demon bearing man flit about the battle field, never missing a single shot. There were times that he moved so quickly that all I could make out of him was a red blur. "They may not be trained for battle, but the Keyblades' magic should guide them enough to keep them alive. They have to meet up with the King's men anyway and they should be in this world by now. It's very likely that we'll run into them while we're fighting. Anyways, you two didn't seem to mind when I said that they were coming with us back at the shop."

"That was because our training was kicking in!" Mom seemed about as thrilled to have us out on the battle field as dad was. The only difference was that I was a hell of a lot more scared of the brunette than I was of the blonde. It had to be a "mom" thing. "All we heard was 'you, you, go there and do this'!"

"Ge' over it!" The spear wielding man yelled out, somehow finding time to light a cig between killing heartless. "They're 'ere and ya two will be with em!"

Nothing else was said after that. From where we were as this conversation was going on, a monument like fountain, to the alleyway that Vincent and Cid steered us down, everything was a flurry of hectic images and desperate actions. Bullets and fireballs flew around, blades from both sword and spear glinted as they sliced, chopped and impaled the horrible, sad creatures and crystal hearts flew out of every one that my brother and I so happened to be able to take down. Eventually, though we were nowhere near as skilled as the four men that were fighting around us, we were able to get into a kind of rhythm.

Third District was a hell of a lot different from both First and Second. Directly to our left was a small house that looked well lived in. (Probably where our parents' family lived.) There were ramps that lead down to where I could see several doors, and two of which looked like it only led to behind a beautiful, golden mural of two dogs. One was clearly a well groomed purebred and the other was a more scraggly looking mutt. I could also see where some pipes were broken and sparks were dancing all around it.

"Stay close to us," mom said, carefully taking a step forward. Not even two seconds later my brother and I were hit by something from behind. The force was enough to send us forward and we rolled all of the way down the ramp.

We stared up dazed. It was weird though. I could have sworn that there was a duck sitting on top of me, yelling at what looked like a giant dog that was sprawled out on Sora.

"Goofy! You palooka!" The duck was white with a yellow-orange bill and was wearing a blue hat and jacket. In his right wing like hand was a staff.

"Garsh! Sorry Donald, I tripped, hayuk," the dog, "Goofy" said, getting off of my brother and helping him up. The dog was ridiculously tall and lanky and wore kaki pants and a green jacket and hat. Sora pulled me up while we stared at the two peculiar gents.

"Sora! Roxas!" We automatically turned our heads as we heard our mom's frantic voice. He was beating against some invisible wall, trying desperately to get to us.

At that moment, my heart started beating faster, almost like when I had met Vincent. It was nowhere near as terrifying, but I just _knew_ that something was coming and that, whatever it was, it was far more powerful than anything we had run into since our island had been attacked. "Get out of there!"

Before we could even think of running, a loud boom echoed out from behind us and the ground began to shake. We faced it, muscles tense and weapons ready, but all we saw was a pile of armor. Then, as if by magic, all of the pieces floated up and began to assemble themselves until it was standing tall, bearing the heartless symbol.

"Oh shit," I muttered taking a step back. It raised its gauntlet and swept the dog away easily. The only thing that kept him from being killed was the small shield he held in front of himself. "This is not good."

"We have to fight!" Sora said. I was only just able to pull him out of the way of the foot that came with _three inches_ of crushing him.

"Are you kidding?" I rolled away from to other foot and crossed my Keyblades in front of myself to block a giant gauntlet. "We can get killed!"

"We don't seem to have much of a choice! We'll get killed if we don't do anything and it doesn't look like mom and dad can get through to help us!" I took a quick glance at where I had last seen our parents and saw that Sora was right. They weren't even trying to get through anymore. Dad just held mom, their swords tucked away for the moment. I could see that dad was examining the battle carefully.

"Aim for the torso!" he yelled. "You should be able to block the limbs as you attack!"

"Thanks Dad!" my twin and I both yelled back as we did as he said. He was right. The arms circled around the main body as we attacked, trying to hit us. As long as we swung our blades quick enough, we were able to block them. Luckily, when we weren't, the duck and dog used magic and shield respectively to cover for us.

For a while, everything was going great. The legs and gauntlets were gone and all that was left was the body and head. Easy pickings, right? I wish. It was just when we thought that we finally had him, everything went wrong.

First it spun around quickly, pushing all four of us away. As we hit the walls or ground around us the wind was knocked out of our chests. My limbs felt like jelly and I could have sworn that the impact broke one of my ribs, at least. I could see that I wasn't the only one having troubles getting up and that the torso of the heartless had laid itself back. The wider end was facing us and was charging up to shoot at us like a cannon. There was no way that we were going to survive if it hit us.

The edges of my sight went hazy and I knew that I wouldn't be able to stay conscious much longer. My heart began to race faster than it ever had before and I felt like fire was running through my veins. As the world went dark I saw a blur of red and a pair of vibrant, green eyes hiding in the shadows just beyond where the barrier thing was that was keeping my parents away from the battle.


	5. Chapter 5

Sadistic-neko: Hi everyone! I figured that, since I already had this typed and since I was getting so many nice reviews that I may as well update now.

Roxas: You didn't kill me off in the last chapter, did you?

Sadistic-neko: (looks appalled) Of course not! You're my favorite character! That and I'm also too lazy to come up with some convoluted resurrection plot.

Roxas: (sighs) You're hopeless.

Sadistic-neko: Meanie! If you're gonna be that way I'll keep Axel out of the story for another few chapters!

Roxas: You were planning that anyway! YOU don't even know when he'll show up and you're the author!

Sadistic-neko: That may be but I can't help it! There's still so much I want to do before you leave Traverse Town that it's making things difficult!

Sora: (pops up from nowhere) Since it looks like those to are going to be at it for a while, Sadistic-neko does not own Kingdom Hearts and hopes that you all enjoy her latest chapter.

**Cloud POV (As opposed to my typical writing style, I am going to try not to change POVs much in this fic to try something new.)**

I jumped as I sensed something advancing quickly towards me from behind. I could see Squall respond the same way as two blurs of white, blue and black and brown, red and green flew down the ramp in front of us. My eyes widened and I looked behind me hoping that I wasn't really seeing what I thought I was. I was dismayed when I realized that it was what I thought. My sons, Roxas and Sora, had somehow been knocked over by a giant duck and dog. I just knew that these knew figures were the King's men. After all, wouldn't it make sense for a mouse king to have animal like companions?

"Great," my lover muttered as he rubbed his temples. I cracked a small smile knowing just how much he hated horribly placed occurrences like this. He sighed, removed his hand and went to walk down the ramp to, probably, scold our boys for not paying enough attention to their surroundings but was stopped by some invisible wall. We both tensed, knowing exactly what that meant. A powerful heartless was coming and the two teens were going to be right there when it showed up and there was nothing we couldn't get to them. "Sora! Roxas!"— both looked to him automatically —"Get out of there!"

He began to pound desperately against the invisible barrier. I grabbed his arms to stop him, afraid that he might injure himself. It nearly broke my heart when he looked up at me with terrified gray eyes.

"Cloud, we have to help them!" I shook my head and looked to where the heartless came down before it began its assault. Our boys seemed to be arguing over something before they joined the duck and dog in the battle.

"We can't get through, you know that. Our boys are strong and I'm sure that, as mom said, the keyblades will protect them. Just have faith in them." My lion turned around to face the battle gravely and I put First Tsurugi in its proper place on my back before putting my hands on his shoulders, rubbing them the way I knew was typically soothing. It didn't help much but was worth a shot. All the while, though, I watched the battle carefully, hoping to find something that would help our children. Then it hit me. "Aim for the torso! You should be able to block the limbs as you attack!"

They looked to the demon, hopefully noticing the same thing I did. Its most common attack was to spin its arms around its body and to stomp its feet.

"Thanks dad!" they yelled back at the same time. If they saw what I did or not, at least they trusted my experience enough to do as I said.

Leon and I just watched, wincing every time they almost got hit. We both needed to thank that duck and dog after the battled for covering the boys when they weren't fast enough to do so themselves. I could feel the brunette's shoulders begin to relax under my hands and was pleased with how Roxas and Sora were doing in their battle. All of the limbs were destroyed leaving only the torso and head when it spun around, knocking everyone away and roughly into walls on all sides.

I tightened my grip on Leon's shoulders as he began to try and run at the invisible wall again. His beautiful storm gray eyes were wide with terror, fixed on something. Worried, I looked to see what he was staring at and froze. Sora was knocked out and Roxas was struggling to get up, gripping his side in obvious pain. The giant heartless was gathering energy and was aimed right at the injured blonde. Both the duck and the dog were getting up slowly, right next to each other, but there was no way that they could do anything to help.

My eyes darted back to my son and my heart stopped for an instant. The boy was looking right at the monster, eyes hazy and clearly ready to faint. After a second, he seemed to resign himself and looked away, staring at the shadows there before collapsing.

"Roxas!" the male in my arms screamed as the heartless finally got it's shot off. I pulled him to my chest, but he was still fighting, trying to get to his baby. Time seemed to stop as another flash broke through the blast that was flying from the monster. It was different, though, flickering like a flame.

My eyes went wide as I realized that it _was_ fire and that it was coming from the unconscious body of the blonde teen. It shot off of him in an inferno, engulfing everything around him. I snapped my gaze to Sora, scared that it might just get him too, but he was surrounded by what looked like a wall of shadows and, not far from him, the dog had his shield up, blocking the fire from him and the duck. What shocked me the most, though, was the energy that was bearing down on the area like a heavy sheet. It was the same kind of energy that I always sensed when Chaos or one of mom's other demons came out.

We stood in stunned silence as the flames died down and the heartless let out a pained screech before disappearing. It felt like I was full of lead and I couldn't move. A million thoughts ran through my head, all trying to figure out what the hell just happened. I broke out of my revere as I heard the flapping of cloth that I knew all too well.

"What was that massive energy I just sensed?" the deep, familiar and soothing voice of my adoptive "mom" asked from just behind me.

"It came for Roxas and Sora," Leon softly replied, reaching his arm out to see if the barrier that had stopped us earlier had removed itself yet. He was met with no resistance so he ran out of my arms and right to our children, completely ignoring the King's men staring at the Keyblade wielders and talking quietly amongst themselves.

"It appears that those boys have something hidden in them that we failed to notice before." I nodded before looking to the raven haired man that I knew was the only that could possibly give us any answers.

"It felt demonic," I said looking right into his crimson eyes. "Dose Chaos know what it was?"

The other man was silent for a moment, staring blankly back at me as he listened to the demon's voice inside his head. I was disappointed when he shook his head.

"No. He says that he would need control and have a some time to examine them before he can say anything conclusive." I nodded and went down to where the boys were lying, kneeling next to Roxas as his "mother" looked him over.

"Sora just hit his head," the man said more to himself than to me. He felt up the blonde teen's sides and flinched as the boy winced on his sleep. "It feels like Roxas broke one, no, two, ribs."

I put my hand on his shoulder to get his attention. He was still in worried mom mode when he looked to me.

"Mom says that mother Chaos needs to look at them to figure out what going on. We need to get the boys to the accessory shop in first district." He nodded. "I'll take Roxas, why don't you go grab Sora?"

Again, he nodded before standing and going over to the other brunette. Satisfied that Leon would be okay for now, I carefully put one arm under Roxas' knees and the other under his neck before gently picking him up. Not wanting to hurt him any more than he already was, I adjusted him in my arms until his head was resting against my shoulder and I made sure to keep my gait smooth as I walked back to Cid's shop in the first district. Luckily, it looked like my adoptive parents did a good job clearing second district out and any stragglers were promptly shot by mom as he walked in front of us.

"Aeris," the gunslinger said as he walked through the door. "The boys are injured. Heal them and have their parents put them in the back room. I need to have a look at them."

Without a word, the pink clad woman went straight to us and healed our boys, starting with Sora. Green light emanated from her hands as she healed the bump on his head. Her brow furrowed when she got to Roxas.

"What's the matter?" She frowned, too into her healing and whatever it was that was confusing her to hear my question. As soon as she was done, she looked at me, her green eyes clearly showing her confusion.

"Has he always healed this fast?" I raised a brow, wondering what the she was talking about. She took that as an answer. "He heals almost as fast as you do, Cloud."

Determined to get some answers, I went right to the room I had seen mom go in as Aeris healed my sons. I heard my lover follow behind me. The was already open and the man that was our only hope to figure this out was waiting. He gestured to the bed and, once we put our burdens down, to the door. Trusting him completely, we left, leaned our blades against a close by wall, and plopped down on the loveseat. As soon as we were down, Leon cuddled up to me, seeking comfort, and wrapped his arms around my chest. I put an arm around him and ran my hand through his hair. A moment later, the stress of the day finally got to him and he fell asleep.

"Hey!" an annoying, squawky voice rang out through the shop. "Let us through!"

I glanced at the man in lying against me, hoping that it didn't wake him and sighed in relief when I found that he was sleeping just as soundly as before. Knowing that, if that didn't wake him up, nothing would until he was ready, I looked to the door and glared in the direction I heard flat feet flopping in. It was the duck and the dog.

"What do you want?" I growled out savagely enough to make them back up a couple of steps. Once the duck recovered from the scare, he crossed his wing-arms in front of himself and glared right back at me.

"We need to see the boys with the keys. We saw you two bring them in here." I added more heat to my glare.

"Come back tomorrow and we _might_ let you see them."

"We were sent by the king to find them!" The duck stomped his webbed foot and the dog just looked between us in confusion.

"Well I don't give a damn."

"Who do you think you are?" He charged towards the door to the room that the boys were in but stopped when I grabbed First Tsurugi with my free hand and held it to his neck.

"Their father." That made him pause. "You better be thankful that their mother here is asleep. He is a hell of a lot more protective than I am and wouldn't have a problem turning you into roast duck even you were sent by the king. Now you can either sit your ass down and wait until my sons are rested and my mother is finished looking over them, or you can try disturbing them one more time and lose your head. Choose."

It looked like he was going to try talking back, but the dog grabbed his bill and began pulling him back to the couch that was on the other side of the room. As he sat them both down, he looked me in the eye and gave me an understanding nod. Obviously, he was smarter than he looked.

A few hours later, door opened and Chaos came out, looking more serious than usual. He gave the brunette sleeping on me a glance and I began to shake him gently. He gave a groan and tightened his hold on me.

"Love, you need to wake up," I whispered in his ear, earning a shiver from the smaller man. "Mother Chaos is done looking at the boys."

"What?" He sat up quickly, searching the room until he found the demon. Like magic, the rest of the family came in and kicked the King's men out. It didn't take much to move them this time, at least. It took a moment for everyone get situated and all attention to be turned to the winged demon. "What's going on with them?"

"They both have something different happening to them. Sora has some kind of deep attachment to a demon and Roxas has a demon's heart." Everything was silent. How did this happen?

"Could you please explain that?" He just looked at us before sitting down, close to his limit. Mom's body was tired and couldn't handle mother Chaos having control for much longer. Our old man sat next to him, ready to catch his husband in case he collapsed.

"I can't figure out what connection Sora has to his demon, but it's holding his soul together by balancing out his pure light heart with that of darkness. Roxas, on the other hand, is being kept alive by a heart given to him by a demon. Whatever happened today woke up the power that had been suppressed before and turned him into a demon himself."

"What kind of demon?" Leon asked. I held him close, feeling him shaking.

"One I've never seen before. Whatever and whoever they are, I do not believe that they are a threat. In fact, I believe that they are protecting them." That was the last we heard from the demon. Without warning, he turned back into Vincent and fainted right into his mate's waiting arms.

"Well, then," Cid began. "That's all we're gettin' t'day. Spikey and Lion boy can stay 'ere with their boys and we can deal with everything tamorra."


	6. Chapter 6

Sadistic-neko: Hey everyone! I'm alive and happy to put this new chap up!

Axel:When am I showing up in this?

Sadistic-neko: (tilts head confusedly) You already have.

Axel: That doesn't count! I haven't even gotten to talk to my Roxy yet!

Sadistic-neko: I don't know when you and Riku will show up, okay. I still need to get other stuff done in here before you two can make an actual appearance.

Axel: (crosses arms and sulks) Whatever.

Sadistic-neko: (sighs) Since it looks like he's going to ornery with me for now I guess I have to do the disclaimer by myself. (Turns to readers) I don't own Kingdom Hearts and I hope that you all enjoy my newest chapter.

**Roxas POV**

I woke with a pounding headache. Sora was snoring next to me, clinging to me like I was a giant teddy bear. Cursing the light coming in from the window, I rolled over. Just before I could drift back to sleep, though, I remembered that the island I grew up on had been destroyed and everything that happened after. I sat up quickly and gripped my head as the pain intensified.

"Here," I heard a kind, feminine voice say from right next to the bed my brother and I were on. I looked to see who it was and saw the pink wearing woman that was a friend of our parents. She was holding a cup of steaming liquid to me. I took it and carefully sipped it, thankful when it made the pain in my head go away.

"Thanks." She smiled at me and I looked around, trying to get my bearings. I frowned when I didn't see the two people that I expected to be there. "Where's mom and dad?"

"They're arguing with the King's men outside." I sighed, pushed Sora off of the bed and got up myself. My twin sputtered and yelled for a moment before he realized we weren't at home. I helped him up and we made our way out of the room.

The first thing I heard as we approached the front of the shop was hysterical laughter and profuse apologizing. Not quite sure what to make of it, my twin and I paused just outside the door to the shop. What the hell was going on in there?

Finally, we built up the courage to walk in and nearly fell over at the sight that met us. Gramps was literally rolling on the floor laughing, mom was holding the collar of a battered duck person, dad was leaning against a wall glaring at said duck and the dog from the previous day was flailing around apologizing.

"Garsh, sorry 'bout Donald. He didn't mean to be rude." Mom looked to him with burning eyes, dropping the duck and kicking him once for good measure. He straightened up before stalking to the dog and, with his sword resting menacingly on his shoulder, leaned down until they were eye-to-eye.

"Didn't mean to be rude? That's hardly the beginning of it," he growled. Never had I seen mom so mad before and man was I happy his rage wasn't directed towards me. "Those two are _my children_! They had never been on a battlefield before yesterday and yet you honestly believe that I'll let you two people that I don't know take them away to fight dangerous demons without _an ounce of training_! _As if_!"

The dog gulped and stared at him for a moment in utter fear. He looked so small like that next to my fuming mother.

"B-but," he tried again. "The king told us to find the Keys! If they don't come with us the worlds will all be in a heap of trouble! We need them!"

"I realize that!" Mom looked like a put off cat right about now. His hair was bristling up in his anger and he was pacing like he was ready to jump the first thing to move. "It won't make any difference though if they can't fend for themselves. They barely know how to even summon their weapons, let alone properly use them."

The atmosphere was full of sparks of electricity and fire. It was ruined, though, when my stomach growled fiercely. Four pairs of eyes (the duck had finally regained consciousness) snapped to my brother and me standing in the doorway awkwardly. I blushed and glared at my abdomen. Little traitor bastard. It gave us away.

"Sora, Roxas, how are you feeling?" Dad asked, pushing off of the wall and walking to us. He had changed into a tight, zip-up black shirt with no sleeves and black pants. There was some kind of pad on his shoulder with a long, cape like sleeve and around his waist a pouch and skirt thing. His feet bore heavy boots and his hands were covered with gloves. First Tsurugi was resting in its harness on his back.

"Fine," I answered, eyeing mom's new change of clothing too. He wore tight, tight leather pants, a white shirt and a jacket that had a furry rim around his neck. He also had gloves and boots like dad but also had various belts, well, everywhere. Lionheart was at his hip, though I had a feeling that it wouldn't remain there much longer with the way his hand was twitching towards it as he eyed the duck threateningly.

"Good." The blonde looked over his shoulder to his lover before putting his hands on our backs and pushing us farther into the building. "Your mother is probably going to be a while. Why don't we get you two something to eat while we're waiting for him to cool down?"

My brother and I nodded, knowing how our mother could get, and let dad lead us to the kitchen where grandma and Aeris were waiting with a boat load of food. Everything that I could imagine was set out on the counter and stove. There were eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, pancakes and more. I was in heaven!

Without prompting, Sora and I rushed to the food, grabbing plates on the way and piling them high with food. By the time we took our seats our plates were so full of food that we couldn't see over them. Without a second thought, we chowed down and, only minutes later, we could see our family staring amazedly at us.

"What?" I asked. "It's not like we've had anything to eat other than some teacakes and biscuits since the island was attacked."

"True," dad said before going back to his own meal. There was a bang from the other room before our mother came in and plopped down on the chair next to dad and pulled an already prepared plate to him before attacking his breakfast. Everyone in the room knew better than to disturb him when he was this irritable. It was ideal to their health to just wait until he cooled down enough to vent. After a moment, his chewing was less brutal and the angry aura around him wasn't quite so overbearing. "So, did you settle the issue with the king's men?"

"Yes." His voice was curt. Apparently realizing that he was taking his anger out on innocent family members, he took a deep breath before continuing. When he spoke again it sounded more tired and resigned. "The boys will go with them, but we get to train them first and we get to go with them until we feel that they can handle themselves."

Dad leaned back in his chair and hummed in approval. All was silent as the adults finished their meal. It was when mom was helping grandma with dishes that I finally got up the courage to ask what had been on my mind since I woke up.

"What happened to us yesterday?" Everyone froze. I raised a brow and watched as they all let out a resigned sigh. My parents shared a meaningful look with their mother before they all sat down, the black-haired, demon bearing man directly in front of my twin and me. Mom and dad were on either side of us, dad next to me and mom beside Sora.

"What is the last thing that you remember?" I gazed into his crimson eyes, trying to see what caused them all to freeze before. Those glowing orbs gave nothing away.

"We were fighting a giant heartless. It had knocked us away and I was hurt and couldn't get up. My body felt like it was on fire and I passed out." I left out the eyes I saw. There was just something about them that made the experience seem so personal.

"From what Cloud and Squall have told me, after you passed out, an inferno shot off of you, scaring the demon away." I stared at him in shock. That couldn't be possible, could it?

"How?"

"You have a demon's heart. I believe that the trauma of the battle may have awakened the suppressed energy. It had even gone so far as to turn you into a demon." They all watched me carefully, waiting to see how I would take this information. Even _Sora_ was silent.

"I'm a demon." They all nodded, clearly curious as to whether I would go into shock or not. I couldn't blame them considering how calmly I seemed to be taking it. Ignoring everyone else in the room, I locked gazes with my grandmother. If there was any reason to be afraid, he would tell me. He had demons living inside of him after all. "What kind?"

"I'm not sure," he said shaking his head slightly with closed eyes. "I've never encountered it before. Even Chaos, the most powerful and intelligent demon within me is not familiar with it."

"Is there any chance that I will end up as a thoughtless creature like the heatless?"

"No, whatever you have become is too powerful and complex to loose itself to its baser instincts." I nodded in understanding before flashing a blinding grin.

"Then there's nothing to worry about." I could feel the tension in the air lighten as I spoke. "How did I get a demon's heart to begin with, anyway?"

"I think that you and your brother are being watched by demons. It wouldn't be too bizarre if one of them gave you its heart to save your life at some point or another. Is there anything you can think of where this might have happened?" I thought back. Was there any time that I should have died? Immediately something came to mind.

"When our biological mother died, Sora and I were in the car with her. We were hit on the driver's side. I was hit almost directly. There's not much that I can remember from that night, but I do remember how much it hurt and all of the blood. Now that I think back to it, there's no way that I should have survived that, but I woke up the next morning in tattered clothes and not a scratch on me. Mom and dad found Sora and me not long after that." I felt a large hand on my shoulder and looked to find my dad giving me a reassuring squeeze. I relaxed looking into his strong, calming eyes.

"What about me?" We all looked to my energetic twin as he spoke for the first time since the conversation began. "You said that demons were watching both of us right? Have I been affected too?"

"Yes. Again, I'm not completely sure what your relation with the demon is, but it is holding your heart together." Sora's blue eyes showed his confusion, so the red clad man elaborated. "You are a very rare creature in that you have a heart that is pure light with not an ounce of darkness. The thing is, though, that nothing can be so pure because balance is necessary. Whoever this demon is, is a creature of nothing but darkness and is what keeps your heart stable. Without them, I wouldn't doubt that your heart would cease to be."

"Wow." I couldn't have said it better myself. If anything, there was nothing else to say.

"Well," mom began after too long of awkward silence. "The worlds need you soon, so we better get your training started."

My brother and I nodded and followed him, dad and grandma to Third District. I shuddered when I saw the dent in the wall where I collided into it the day before. When the green eyes flashed in my mind's eye, I relaxed and looked to where I saw them, hoping to see them again. Unfortunately, they weren't there. I was called back to reality when Sora impatiently pulled me to where the three adults were waiting.

"Okay now," said dad looking around. "Pops and Yuffie came out here earlier and made sure that the area was cleared out, so we shouldn't have to worry about heartless showing up for a while. Summon your keyblades so we can begin."

We nodded. Just like yesterday, we looked deep into ourselves, trying to find that pull that would bring the magical weapons forth. After a moment, the keys were in our hands again.

"The first thing that we have to cover is summoning faster. You guys could be attacked by surprise and you won't have more than a second to defend yourselves." We nodded again, all seriousness. "Now dismiss them and summon them again. I want you to do it again and again until it is as second nature as breathing."

That first day of training was devoted to just that. By the time the sun went down, the heartless returned and we had our Keyblades out before we realized that the creature was behind us. Needless to say, dad and mom were beaming with pride as we killed the weak shadows.

We retuned to the shop and took showers, happy to take advantage of the clothes that Aeris magically made all of us. By the time all of us were clean and comfortable, food was done so we all sat at the table and started a boisterous dinner.

"Hey gramps!" I called out over the conversation at the table. "Could you pass the salt?"

I reached up and grabbed the flying shaker from the air before putting the seasoning on my veggies and rice before continuing to eat. I barely glanced out when I heard "Auntie Yuffie", as she demanded that we call her, indignantly yell.

"Not fair! How come he gets to call you 'gramps' but I get whacked every time I try?" Gramps gave her a blank stare that showed just how stupid she was.

"'cause ah am his gramps. Wha else ya thin' he's gonna call meh?"

I began to tune it out as they started a screaming contest and dodged a wad of food as it flew passed my face. Everything quieted down when grandma shot at the two loudmouths.

"So, mom," Sora began as he stuffed his face, trying to break the unnerving silence that fell. Quiet and this family did not mix a bit. "You said that you and Dad's group are from different worlds, right?"

"Yes," the elder brunette answered.

"Then how did you two meet?" Mom put his fork down. And paused, thinking of how to start. Dad watched him, eating slowly to see how he would handle the situation.

"Both of our worlds died at about the same time. People like us whose hearts were too strong to just vanish ended up on another world. Cloud, the others and I landed on the same world. Cloud's companion, Nanaki, or as you heard him called before, Red 13, found me passed out in an alley and brought me to Cid and Vincent. I didn't take being turned into a child again very well, but they took me in. The first time I met your father was when I woke up in the room we shared. He was in a comma from mako poisoning. We didn't exactly hit it off at first considering how irritated I was in how he was so inhumanly strong and I only had the strength of the typical child."

Dad chuckled and pulled mom to him and gave him a light peck on the cheek.

"That was a bit of an understatement, don't you think?" the blonde asked. "If I remember correctly, you tried attacking me when I lifted Lionheart for you when we were younger. You also yelled so loud that my ears were ringing for a week."

"Yeah, yeah," the brunette responded, lightly swatting him away and going back to eating.

"You were in a comma?" I asked dad as he settled back in his seat. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and nodded as he carefully chewed.

"Why? Didn't you already have mako running through you?"

"Yes, but it was the same amount that almost killed me when I was in my late teens and early twenties. That concentration was way too much for the body of a small child."

"Oh." The rest of dinner was uneventful.

^…^…^

Throughout the next few days, Sora and I were trained by our parents and grandmother. Mom, being an expert at single sword combat, took over teaching my twin and dad and grandma taught me. Dad separated one of the multiple swords that made First Tsurugi to teach me forms and various ways to defend myself and grandma taught me how to control my demon powers.

Before we knew it, it was time to start our journey.

"Do we have all of our supplies?" mom asked after we said goodbye to our family. We all nodded. "Well then, let's go."

With that we all hopped onto the gummi ship and started towards the closest world we could find.


	7. Chapter 7

Sadistic-neko: Hey everyone! Hope you guys haven't been too impatient waiting for this.

Riku: You seem awfully chipper.

Sadistic-neko: Not really. I'm just happy that I got this up.

Riku: Do you have any idea when Axel and I are showing up yet?

Sadistic-neko: (smiles gaily) Nope. (sees Riku sigh irritably) Remember, you can't rush genius.

Riku: (stares blankly) What genius?

Sadistic-neko: Hey, that's just mean.

Riku: Whatever.

Sadistic-neko: (huffs and turns with arms crossed) Fine, be that way. (Looks to readers) I don't own Kingdom Hearts and I hope you enjoy my newest chap! Oh, and if you guys want me to write about how Cloud and Squall got together, just say so!

"Wow!" Sora exclaimed, jumping all over the small ship. "What's that?"

I could see Donald's eyebrow twitch as his grip on the controls tightened. Mom and dad leaned back in their seats and closed their eyes. They were so used to my twin's loud antics that they never even noticed them anymore. I was too, so I was on the verge of sleep until the duck yelled out.

"Would you cut it out already? Sit down!" His annoying squawk echoed and pierced our eardrums making us all cringe. The brunette stepped back a little before pointing out the front window. We all turned and stared in amazement. Just before us was another world.

It was circular, covered with pink checker squares with hearts in the center. On top we could see a castle with a giant heart shaped hedge arch. The bottom held an upside-down cottage with trees around it.

"It would appear that we have found our first world," Dad said calmly, leaning forward in his seat and resting his head on his folded hands with his elbows braced on his knees. There was a small bleep form the control panel and the screen that lay there sparked to life. As the picture cleared, we could see to almost identical chipmunks looking at us excitedly. The only differences I could find between them was that one had a black nose with his front teeth together sticking out of his lips directly under said coal like nose and its companion had a cherry red nose with teeth sticking out on either side of it.

"Heya fellas!" the red nosed one called out, waving animatedly.

"We are your gummi ship engineers, Chip," the black nose one began.

"And Dale!" the other one piped up again and finished. "We just thought you might like to know that the world you are looking at is called Wonderland. Do you guys want to land there?"

"Of course!" Donald yelled again. I was certain that I wasn't the only one that wanted to tape his damn beak shut. Getting along with him wasn't ever an issue except when he started to yell. "The king could be there!"

That was all he said, thankfully, before pushing various buttons and stepping in the middle of the ship, acting as if the little guys on the screen weren't there anymore. Taking his lead, we all joined him before I felt the sensation of being weightless. It was very disconcerting. I was snapped out of contemplating this feeling when I heard my mother yell.

"What the hell you damn duck! Where the hell did you think you were placing us?" At first I had no idea what he was going on about, but then Sora yelled and I noticed the wind flying passed me. Though it scared me to, I looked down and saw that we were falling down what looked like an endless pit.

"Holy shit!" I yelled, barely missing a dresser that was imbedded in the wall.

"Roxas!"

"Craaaap!" I corrected myself as mom snapped at me.

Everywhere, furniture was sticking out of the wall. I could see a bed, the aforementioned dresser, and even a piano! It was, by far, the most unusual tunnel I had ever seen in my life. Not only was it filled with such strange items, but we still couldn't see the bottom.

I couldn't tell you how long we fell, but, after a while, the fear wore off and we ended up just lounging back, still falling. The tunnel had widened out, so we no longer needed to look out to avoid be hit and, frankly, we were starting to get bored to the point of falling asleep. In fact, my eyes were so heavy that they were closed more than open and I was starting to zone out for longer and longer periods of time. I bolted awake, though, when my brother yelled out again.

"Hey," he began, his blue eyes scanned our surroundings as if looking for something. All eyes, excluding Goofy's, who was dead asleep, focused on him. "Is it just me or are we slowing down?"

Mom and dad's eyes widened as they quickly looked down. My brother and I did too and we were both relieved and frightened by what we saw. There was ground beneath us, coming at us rapidly. Though we were slowing, it was still up to debate on whether or not we would slow down enough to where we would be made pancakes upon landing.

A moment later, we found that our worries were pointless. Instead of continuing down, we were suspended in the air about a foot above the tiled floor.

"Brace yourselves," Dad said, adjusting First Tsurugi on his back to better balance himself. "I doubt that this magic will hold us much longer."

Sora and I nodded and turned all of attention on keeping vertical and watching the ground beneath our feet. We would not allow ourselves to be caught by surprised when we were released. Sure enough, gravity began working a couple of seconds later and my brother and I only stumbled a little, falling to one knee slightly. Goofy, on the other hand, who was still laying back snoozing with his hands beneath his head came down hard on his back and woke to the wind being temporarily knocked from him.

Seeing that Donald was going to help the dog up, I looked around the room that we had landed in. It was circular and the walls were made of red brick with wood shelves higher up and three foot tall wood paneling around the bottom. Everything beneath our feet, including the rug and sofa, were painted on.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a white blur and snapped my head to the side to see it fully. I was left in stunned silence as my gaze met a white rabbit holding a pocket watch and wearing a yellow shirt, grey pants and a red coat ran by.

"Oh my fur and whiskers!" it cried out. "I'm late! I'm late! I'm late! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! I'm here I should be there! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! Oh the queen! She'll have my head for sure!"

With that, he disappeared around a corner. I could only stare blankly until, again, my brother broke the silence.

"Was that a rabbit wearing clothes yelling about being late?" We all nodded. "Okay, just thought I should double check."

With that, he began to run after it and our parents, now recovered from the shock followed him with me hot at their heels and Donald and Goofy right behind me.

"Where do you think you're going!" mom yelled to him.

"To see where the rabbit's going! There's only one way to go anyway so it's not like we have much of a choice!" I was astonished. Sora's reasoning actually made sense.

A moment later we were met by a door that automatically opened with two more behind it, both smaller than the last. Without a word, we entered, weapons ready in case something was waiting on the other side to attack us.

This room was square and made of the same brick as the previous one. To our left was a little table next to two red chairs and a bed. Between the bed and second chair, a blue grandfather clock was painted on the wall. On our right was a stove. What got our attention though, was the now mini-rabbit running across the floor and into a small wooden door with a golden doorknob.

"How'd he get so small?" Sora asked as we kneeled down in front of the door. We all jumped when the doorknob looked up at us and spoke.

"No, you're simply too big."

"Wah! It talks!" Donald exclaimed, stating the obvious. Really, it wasn't that big of a shock after all that we had seen the past couple of days. I turned my attention back to the knob as it yawned widely.

"Must you be so loud?" it asked. "You woke me up."

"Good mornin'," Goofy said in a friendly manner, raising his hand in a little wave.

"Good night," it replied, closing its eyes. "I need a bit more sleep."

"Wait!" Sora practically lunged at it to get it to talk before dozing off. "What do we have to do to grow small?"

"Why don't you try the bottle -yawn- over there?" I could barely understand through its tired slurring. We turned around and a blue table with two bottles, one red and the other blue, and a chair popped up out of the floor. Yep, this place was getting weirder and weirder by the minute, unusual turns in our lives be damned. Before we could even turn around to ask it more questions, we could already hear snoring.

"Do you think it's safe to drink?" Mom asked, gingerly holding the bottle that had a picture of someone shrinking on its label. It was clear from his suspicious look that he didn't trust it one bit.

"We won't know until we try it," dad said, taking the bottle from mom and having a small sip. With a puff of smoke he became six inches tall. Figuring that, if it didn't kill the elder blonde it must have been okay, mom repeated it and soon everyone except me was tiny and trying to get the doorknob to let us through. The only response they were getting, though, was loud snoring.

Right when I was about to take a sip too and join them, I noticed something at the head of the bed. Curious, I put the bottle down went to investigate. As soon as I touched the blue blanket, the bed was sucked into the wall and a door was revealed. It was the perfect size for everyone to get through while shrunk.

"Good job Roxas!" I couldn't help but lightly giggle at my brother's high pitched yell. Now that was cute.

Figuring that I was holding everyone up, I shook off my amusement and took a quick sip of the drink. After getting over the disorienting feeling of vertigo, I joined my companions and we went through the door.

We ended up outside and were greeted by armored playing cards from the hearts and spades suites holding spears. They were kind enough to let us by so we could see what was going on. All around us were hedges and the arch above us was shaped like a heart.

After a moment, our attention was caught by the sound of a trumpet. Its player, the rabbit from before, was standing on a raised platform in the far left corner. In front of him at the head of the area was another raised platform with a throne that housed a large woman wearing all red and sticking with the heart theme of the place. Her hair was in a messy looking bun atop her head and a crown was tangled in the thin, gross looking black locks. In the center of the area was a podium where a girl with blonde hair that was wearing a blue dress and matching ribbon stood.

"Court is now in secession!" the rabbit called, gasping to regain his breath. The girl, appearing quite shocked, turned to him.

"I'm on trial?" her young voice exclaimed. "But why?"

"Her majesty the Queen of Hearts presiding," he continued as though he hadn't heard her. All attention was brought to the large woman as she leaned forward to talk.

"This girl is the culprit. There's no doubt about it." Her statement held absolute confidence as though she couldn't be wrong. "And the reason is, because I say so, that's why!"

"That is so unfair!" the girl cried indignantly.

"Well, have you anything to say in your defense?"

"Of course! I've done absolutely nothing wrong. You may be queen but that doesn't give you the right to be so, so mean!" I smiled as this girl talked. What she said was true and I agreed with her wholeheartedly. There was a fire in her that I could respect, that was for sure.

"Silence! You dare defy me?" The bitch queen slammed her heart shaped scepter on the ledge in front of her. In my opinion, she sounded like a bratty child.

"Hey guys, we should help her out," my brother said. I couldn't help but nod. I was stunned when our dad grabbed one of our shoulders each and shook his head gravely.

"I'm afraid we can't." What he was saying made no sense! I could hear the regret in his voice, so why wasn't he jumping up to help her too? Surely it would only take a swing or two of his huge ass sword to get the dick wads holding the girl on trial to see his way.

"It would be muddling," Goofy said, trying to be helpful only to get yelled at by Donald.

"Meddling!"

"Yeah, that! And that against the rules." I stared at them in shock. Were they really just going to watch as this girl took a hit for something she didn't do? Not knowing what else to do, my brother and stayed back, sulking, and looked back to the trial.

"The court finds the defendant," the fat excuse for a lady paused for effect, "guilty as charged! For the crimes of assault and attempted theft of my heart."

Sora and I gasped lightly. This was the perfect excuse to jump in there. The only beings that could possibly have done that were the heartless!

"Off with her head!" The cards all tensed, ready to obey the order.

"No!" The girl cried. "Oh please!"

"Hold it right there!" I yelled as my brother and I broke free of our dad's hold and put ourselves between her and the soldiers with our weapons at the ready.

"Who are you? How dare you interfere with my court!" I glared at the self-righteous woman.

"We know who the real culprit is." I let all resentment flow through my voice as I addressed her.

"Yeah," our canine friend piped up again. "It's the hearl-"

Luckily he caught himself in time and covered his mouth before he could finish what he was saying.

"She's not the one you're looking for." I had to get attention away form him before he blew our cover.

"That's nonsense." She began tapping her scepter against the wood of her platform and it was _really_ grating on my nerves when combined with her irritating voice. "Have you any proof?"

Damn that bitch! I glared at her, knowing that we didn't have anything concrete and couldn't just flat out tell her the truth. Stupid pain in the ass rules.

"Well then," the woman leaned back in her chair. "If you're so sure she's innocent then bring me evidence. If you fail then it's off with all of your heads."

I watched the girl get crammed into a metal cage with a ring at the top held in a vulture's mouth, determined to free her. Without a thought, Sora ran to her and began to reassure her that she would be fine. Knowing that I failed in the comforting department, I fell back and joined our parent and the others. Once I was within reach, mom dug his fist into the top of my head and ground into it.

"That was very brave, but stupid. Think before you act next time. You two could have gotten hurt." I winced as I looked up at him. I wasn't in too much pain, after all it was only a light reprimand. It made me beam to hear the pride laced into his words.

"Well c'mon guys!" my twin called to us from a hole in the maze that looked to lead somewhere. "We're not going to save Alice just by standing here!"

We all followed him into the next area. It was much wilder than anything we had seen in this world. Tall grass separated various sections, lily pads and mushrooms grew huge and, like in the bizarre room and the rabbit's hole, there were painted figures on the ground.

"Waah!" nearly jumping out of my skin, I looked to see what caused the duck to scream this time. Right in front of us was a pink, floating cat head. It flew around, randomly disappearing to show up again somewhere else before stopping on a stump right next to the entrance. That's when the rest of his body appeared, taking "standing on your head" to a whole new level.

"The shadows are gone," it said as it put its head back on. "And poor Alice is going to lose her head."

"Do you know where they went?" Mom asked, hand on the hilt of Lionheart just in case. The cat's grin somehow grew wider.

"Oh, here and there."

"Do you know where we can at least find traces of them?"

"There are four pieces of evidence you can use. The first three are easy to find, but the fourth is tricky." (I'm not bothering to try and get this part right. Too much work to find his exact dialogue.)

"Should we trust him?" dad asked mom quietly, but apparently the cat heard anyway. He disappeared with the last word.

"To trust or not to trust, I'll trust you to decide."

"That was weird." We all looked to Sora nodding. We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Brushing off the strange encounter and trusting that the cat was telling the truth about the evidence, we began to move further into what we dubbed the lotus forest in search of clues. We had only taken a few steps in when we were attacked. They were weak heartless, though, so it took hardly any effort to take them out.

It was an hour later that we walked back to where the trial was being held no longer trusting any door or flowers in that world. We went through the bizarre room at every angle imaginable. One door dropped us on the water faucet, another put us in the same place with the room on its side and more! Then there was a flower that asked for a potion and Sora, being the dimwit he was, gave it one! He grew to his regular size again and we were lucky he heard a fruit tell him to eat it to shrink or else he would have been stuck in the forest. As it was, we narrowly avoided being crushed under his feet. Trying to just get this over with so we could leave this on crack world, I approached the guards standing before the Queen's platform.

"We're ready to prove that Alice is innocent." The guard turned and whispered to his master. Once their conversation was over, he stepped aside and the fat woman behind him glared at me. I met her with one of my own.

"Present your evidence." Without having to be told, Sora, mom, dad and Goofy stepped up and put the pink boxes down before the court. Though not open, I knew what was in each. One had footprints, another an antenna, some dirt saturated with a heartless' stench and claw marks (that one was a pain to get.). "This is my evidence." One pink box joined our four before they all came together, mixed and separated again. "I don't feel like going through all of them, so pick one and I'll decide from there."

"That's not…!" I stopped the brunette's out burst by grabbing his shoulder and pushed him to the boxes. He gave me an indignant look, but was able to read my irritation and just turned to open a box. As he ripped the lid off a poof of smoke burst forth. When it cleared, a heartless was in its place. Automatically, our weapons were out and ready.

The demon disappeared and the queen began to scream. Everything around us began to disappear and a tower popped up in the middle of the area. The cards flew to it, turning the levers. All heads snapped in the direction of Alice's cage as her scream rang through the air. With each turn the now covered cage rose higher and higher.

"Boys!" mom called out, shooting a fireball at the soldiers that tried to attack us. "We'll distract these guys! Attack the tower and get her down!"

"Yes mom!" we yelled back, keyblades already descending on the yellow and red structure. Within moments the cage was back at ground level and the red metal curtain was moved away. It was empty.

"Find her!" the Queen roared. My family, Donald, Goofy and I ran back into the lotus forest. It was the most logical place for her to be taken. As soon as we stopped, we were greeted by the Cheshire cat again.

"Have you seen Alice?" I asked, hoping for a straight answer.

"The shadows took her away!" He rolled in the air, his head staying in the same position it had been in. "If you hurry, you might catch her!"

We didn't waste a second to run to the back of the forest and through the door that had previously been blocked by a boulder. The instant we were in the next area, we saw a cheery sign that read "Tea Party Garden" and a table filled to the brim with teacups and other accessories to have a tea party. There was the little cottage we saw in the gummi ship to our left. As soon as we saw that no one was there, we entered the cottage.

I groaned as I saw that we were in the bizarre room again. This time it was upside down. The cat appeared again, lounging on the chimney stack.

"You can't see the shadows like this. Maybe if the light was on?" Again he vanished. I looked up and could see two oil lamps. If the cat wanted lit, then they would be lit.

"Mom," I began. "Do you think that you can hit those lamps from here?"

He nodded and held his blade up. After taking careful aim, he pulled the trigger twice, one fireball hitting each lamp. Nothing happened. He tried one more time, both he and dad watching carefully.

"There's a magic barrier around them," dad said, his eyes narrowing. "Roxas and Sora are going to have to go up there and activate the lamps themselves."

"Why us?" the spiky haired teen asked, his head tilted slightly to the side.

"Your keyblades are very magical weapons. If anything can get through the barrier, it's them." We nodded and started climbing. The instant our blades touched the lamps, they lit.

"Good, but the shadows won't show up here." The cat floated around upside down. "It's time to look at things from a different angle."

Not even bothering to watch him disappear I jumped down and caught up with my parents as they released a latch and jumped through the door that instantly opened. We fell back to the queen's court and went back into the room. Thankfully it was right side up this time. The cat was waiting for us on the table. We jumped up to meet him.

"I hope you're ready. Here it comes." He vanished and a loud crash was heard as a giant heartless fell to the ground. Its arms looked like they were made of folded paper and it reminded me of a harlequin. I watched as it began to juggle what looked like bowling pins.

"You boys ready for a fight?" Mom asked, already crouched in a fighting stance. He jumped up and began attacking the body. The rest of us began to back him up. Everything was fine until the damn thing lit its pins on fire and began blowing fire at us. I was the only one that wasn't able to jump out of the way in time. "Roxas! Are you okay?"

I didn't answer for a moment, too immersed in the feeling of the flames around me. They didn't hurt. In fact, it was a very comforting feeling, almost like I was being wrapped up in a protective embrace. A content smile spread across my face as they died down.

"Roxas!" I was snapped out of the wonderful feeling at the sound of my father's voice. I looked up and saw that the demon was weak and I was close enough to get a good blow. Being as opportunistic as I was, I took my chance. With one good hit, the heartless collapsed and its crystal heart floated out of it.

"Roxas!" I almost fell over as my brother tackle hugged me. "That was awesome!"

"Alice is gone." We all looked back to the top of the table as the cat spoke. "The shadows took her away."

My brother and I looked to our parents, looking for what they wanted us to do. Both of their weapons were put away and dad had his arm around mom's waist. They deliberated for a moment. After a moment, they looked to us and shook their heads gravely.

"We leave." Mom didn't look too happy to be saying that. "There's nothing more we can do here. Hopefully we find her in another world."

We sighed and turned to leave. Just before we could walk through the door and back to the rabbit hole so we could board the gummi ship again, Sora let out a yelp. Everyone turned to look at him to find that his Keyblade was out and dragging him towards the snoozing doorknob as it let out a gaping yawn.

"It wants to do something Sora!" dad called out. "Let it. It is a magic weapon. Trust it."

He did as was told and relaxed. It pointed at the mouth and a bright stream of light flew to the hole and a clicking sound was heard. It was like a lock being moved into place. Strange.


	8. Author's note Please read

Sadistic-neko: I'm sorry everyone. I know that you were hoping for an update, but I can't right now. My muse ran away again for a while. When I started writing again, my hard-drive blew up on my laptop and I lost everything. When I got a new laptop, I had to copy and paste everything off of my account and got frustrated with correcting the format. After that, I finally almost had a full chapter done for one of my stories and Microsoft office crashed on me as I was finishing the last page or two. I had to write this on my dad's computer for heaven's sake! I have absolutely no idea when I can update, but I will as soon as I can. Please be patient!


	9. Chapter 9

Again, we were in the gummi ship searching for new worlds. Donald sat in the pilot seat and was staring intently out the front window for any heartless that may have tried to attack to us. Goofy and Sora were passed out in their seats from sheer boredom and my parents sat across for me on the u-shaped seat in the back of the ship. Mom was curled up contently against his lover's side and dad was content to have one arm around the brunette and the other draped over the back of the seat.

"So dad," I began. If it stayed quiet for another minute I would have gone insane. His glowing blue eyes lazily drifted to me. "What was your original world like?"

"It was very diverse," he said with a small laugh. "You could probably tell that from being around the others though. It had everything you could imagine. Mountain valleys, vast deserts, large cities, small villages, beautiful beaches that could rival the ones on Destiny Islands and plains that stretched as far as the eye could see were everywhere. I, personally, came from a small village called Nibelheim that was nestled in the mountains. The only thing around it for miles and miles was a Mako reactor."

"Sounds pretty isolated." He laughed again.

"It was, but that helped me out a lot later on. You wouldn't believe how many missions I was sent on because I was a country bumpkin. Same thing with Zack. If there wasn't a clear cut path to follow and the team had to ruff it, we were there to make sure they didn't get themselves killed. It never ceased to amaze me how slow all of the people who grew up in places like Midgar were." I tilted my head in curiosity as the unfamiliar place was mentioned.

"Midgar?"

"It was the largest city in my home world and where the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company was located." I pretended not to notice when he tensed slightly as he mentioned the name of his former employer. Mom rubbed his arm to comfort him and help him keep his fragile hold on sanity. "It was built in layers, plate upon plate, and separated into various districts. Some were better off than others. There were even people that lived in Midgar that had never seen the sky and flowers were few and far between."

"Were Aeris and the others from there? Is that where you met them?" He shook his head.

"Aeris was the only one from there. Tifa and I grew up in the same town. Yuffie was from an island village called Wutai that was the home and training ground of many ninjas. Red Thirteen was the guardian of Cosmo Canyon like his father and grandfather before him, but we ran into each other in Midgar because he was captured and experimented on by Hojo. Cid was from Rocket Town where he was heading the construction of Shin-Ra's first rocket before they cut the project. Barret was from the Corel Desert and I'm not sure where Vincent or Cait Sith were from. We just found Vincent locked in a coffin in the basement of a mansion in my home town and Cait Sith was a doll controlled by someone from afar." I nodded in understanding.

"What about Zack? He was your friend right? Where was he during all of this?" A deep sorrow filled his mako enhanced eyes and I was afraid that I asked something I shouldn't have.

"Yes, he was my best friend. Like me, he was from a small town. It was called Gongaga. I first met him when we were both sent on a mission in a place called Modeoheim (A/N: I probably just misspelled that). We had to search for and, if possible, kill a man who was labeled a traitor. His name was Angeal and he was a SOLDIER First Class and Zack's mentor. It tore him up to kill him, but he wanted to make him proud. In true to Zack fashion, he continued to try as hard as he could and never let go of his dream to be a hero. It was when we were sent to my home town that everything went wrong. Sephiroth, the strongest general and SOLDIER First Class that Shin-Ra had to offer, found out that he was created as a project involving GENOVA cells and, being so close to his 'mother', went insane. I already told you what happened after that. Once Zack regained consciousness four years after I beat the general, he helped me escape. He was weak from the experiments, but still found the strength to break me out and escape with me. Shin-Ra didn't take it too kindly, though. They sent squad after squad of infantrymen and even the Turks after us, but he fought each and every one of them, dragging me behind him the whole way. We were just outside of Midgar when they finally got the better of him. To this day, I still believe that he would have made it if it weren't for me, but that was just how he was. Even if you were to have told him that he would die before we escaped, he probably would have just smiled, said, 'that's okay' and dragged me along anyways."

"He sounds like he was amazing," I said in utter awe. An almost serene smile spread across his lips.

"He was. Even though it was my fault that he died, he didn't blame me. Hell, he even gave me his sword, the same one passed on to him by Angeal, and told me that I was to be his living legacy. What got me, though, was that he actually felt the need to ask me if I thought that, in the end, he was a hero. Like there was any doubt that he was!"

"Did he come back to life on Hallow Bastian like Aeris did?" The elder blonde let out a depressed sigh and shook his head no. Everything was silent for a while as I took all of this new information in. This man, Zack, was one hell of a guy and I couldn't help but feel grateful to him. It was his sacrifice that allowed me to have the man before me as my father. I really wished that I could meet this person and thank him.

The quiet, melancholy atmosphere was broken by the beeping of a machine in the ship's main controls. Donald looked to it really fast before turning the ship and heading for the world that I could see a little ways in the distance. The base of the world looked like it was made of clouds and, on top of the yellow fluffiness, laid a rectangular building with two giant statues standing in a dramatic pose with their swords crossed in front of it.

"Isn't that the Olympus Coliseum?" Mom asked, sitting up to get a better look.

"Yeah," Donald replied. He looked determined as he steadily steered us towards the new world. "There should be a tournament going on right now. A lot of people from several worlds should be there. If we're lucky, one of them has seen the King and can point us to him."

Mom nodded in understanding.

"You're right. This could also be a good chance to train the boys some more before we continue."

A few moments later, we were where we could land and had woken up the slumbering duo. Right before we could depart, though, dad stopped us.

"Something doesn't feel right," he said, staring at the world before us with narrowed eyes. "There's a very strong darkness coming from there. Let me go ahead of you. Maybe I can figure out what it is and keep it distracted from you all."

"Good idea," mom said looking just as wary as dad. He didn't trust this place either. Before dad could leave, mom grabbed his drape like sleeve and gave him a worried look. "Will you be okay? The darkness is awfully strong there."

Instead of answering his lover, dad just gave him a peck on the forehead and a small smile before disappearing into the new world. I grew worried as mom wrung his hands fretfully.

"What's wrong?" I asked, grabbing one of his now shaking hands. He sighed and composed himself before looking me in the eye.

"You father has a problem with the darkness." I stared at him confused. What the hell did he mean? He sighed again when he saw the look on my face, clearly understanding my unvoiced question. "His heart is too strong to be overwhelmed by the darkness, but his mind is another matter entirely." Another confused look. "His sanity was greatly torn when the experiments were done on him. It was a side effect of all of that mako. Seeing Zack die right after that and then having to save the world piled on top of the decimation of his home only made it worse. The darkness feeds on that and makes it harder for him to keep his mind in one piece. Vincent suffers from the same problem. The only thing that we have found that helps them is to being around specific people. Cid and me. We don't know exactly what it is about us that keeps them at least semi-sane, but that's how it's always been."

"Maybe it's because you love each other?" Sora chipped in. Mom shook his head.

"We thought that too before we discovered that I was the one keeping Cloud in his clear state of mind. We were barely acquaintances then." With one last sigh, he pushed us forward to where Donald and Goofy were waiting. "I'm sure your father will be fine, so let's get going."

We nodded and departed. Again, the weightless feeling of being transferred to the new world was odd and disconcerting, but it wasn't as bad as the first trip to Wonderland. We were all relived when everything around us became clear and we could feel solid ground under our feet.

Directly in front of us was the building that I saw from the gummi ship. All around us was high walls and what looked like stone barrels burning. Windows were cut in the walls and clouds were clearly visible wherever you looked. Behind us was a giant wooden door decorated with golden lightning bolts that acted as the entrance and exit to the world.

"It doesn't look like we have much of an option for where to go huh?" my twin asked, pointing out the obvious. Seeing it too, we all automatically began making our way to the door of the towering, ornate building. It too was tall and decorated with golden lightning bolts, but it was also surrounded by huge columns.

The inside was dimly lit with lamps that were stone bowls filled with lit oil. On one of the side walls, there were various trophies and, on the other, there was a giant cube shaped rock. Everything was made of beige stone of various shades. The wall in front of us held a doorway with a sign that read "closed" held by rope.

What caught our attention the most, though, was the man standing next to the doorway. He was on a pedestal trying to put up a poster that seemed determined to fall. He was short and chubby and his bottom half was that of a goat. Two long horns curled slightly and stood high from his forehead.

"Um," my brother began, holding his hand up to tap the guy's shoulder if necessary to get his attention.

"Good timing," the goat-man replied with a slightly gruff voice. It wasn't nearly as gruff as Cid's, but there were definitely some years beneath his belt. Sora put his hand down as soon as the person spoke. "Give me a hand will ya? Move that pedestal over there for me." We looked in the direction he was pointing (he had yet to turn around) to see the giant rock I had noticed earlier. "I gotta spruce this place up for the games."

We shrugged and figured that we may as well have given him a hand. It would be easier to get info from him later if we did. Not particularly caring, we walked over to the pedestal and braced our weight against it. Even with the combined strength of my brother, mom, Donald, Goofy and me, it wouldn't budge. Irritated, Sora straightened up and went back to behind the goat-man who was still trying to get that damn poster to stay up.

"It's too heavy," he whined. The other stiffed slightly.

"What!" He threw his hands up a little and began to turn around. " 'Too heavy'? Since when have you been such a little…" He stopped, looking well above my brother's head before looking down and seeing the brunette goofball. "Oh, wrong guy. What are you doing here?"

I watched as he jumped down and vaguely wondered how his bones were able to handle the impact.

"This here is the world famous coliseum. Heroes only. And I got my hands full preparing for the games. So run along pipsqueaks." Sora glared at the man, looking like he was about ready to pick him up and chuck him across the room. Then the man put his hands on his hips, still looking at my brother dismissively. "Look, it's like this. Heroes are coming from all over to fight ferocious monsters right here in the coliseum."

"You've got heroes standing right in front of you," Donald said, his wings crossed over his chest.

"Yep," Goofy pitched in putting him hands on my and Sora's shoulders. "They're real heroes chosen by the Keyblades."

"And we're heroes too." It was almost laughable how stupid Donald looked as he uncrossed his wings to put one on his hip and used his other hand to point to himself with his thumb.

"Heroes," the man said in disbelief, pointing at us rudely. "Those runts?"

I was within seconds of dropkicking the little bastard as he burst out laughing. So what if we were kind of small? We were still able to get the job done.

"What's so funny?" Sora demanded. "I've fought a bunch of monsters!"

"Hey, if you can't even move this," the goat-man said while struggling against the pedestal that had given us problems. "You can't call yourself a hero!"

My brother and I were in the process of opening our mouths to protest and point out that _he_ couldn't move the damn thing either when mom gave us the terrifying mom glare. We shut our traps before we did anything to really piss him off. We may have been traveling across the worlds in an effort to save them, but he would still find a way to ground us. He gave us a small nod and turned to the goat, intense look still clear in his eyes.

"Please pardon my sons," he began. It was kind of creepy when the goat looked mom over. At least it wasn't sexually. Then again, it may have been worth some discomfort to see him slaughtered by dad. "We were hoping that they could train here. From what I have heard, you are one of the best trainers there is, so we would appreciate it if you would perhaps watch and give us some pointers."

One chubby hand came up to a stubbly chin as he examined our mother more closely. His beady little eyes scanned over everything, focusing on the brunette's legs, arms, and weapon the most. What was stared at the most intensely, though, was mom's storm cloud eyes. After a moment, he nodded his head and took down the "closed" sign.

"You seem like a pretty good warrior, so I don't see why not." Before he could step through the door, mom passed him with confident strides, Lionheart resting casually on his shoulder.

"Oh, and before you say anything about my boys being 'pipsqueaks' again, please take note that their father and I saved our worlds from various psychopathic people with godlike powers when we were barely older than they are now. I'm sure they'll beat my record of age eighteen." Without looking back once, he continued his journey forward. All we could do was stare at him. The goat-man was shocked and my brother and I had the fight the urge to laugh. "What's taking you, we're wasting day light."

"Mom is a real piece of work, huh?" I asked the stunned satyr as I began to jog with my brother and our two companions to catch up to said man. I couldn't hold my laughter back at the next words to pass the lagging man's lips.

"Wait, he's your mother?"

"You should see dad!" Sora called back between giggles. "He's a lot stronger and half insane."

"Sora!" mom yelled and turned around with his hands on his hips. Lionheart was still held firmly in his right hand. "You know it's rude to talk about others when they're not here! And what makes you think that your father is a lot stronger than me?"

"Well there is the fact that he's held you back from killing Auntie Yuffie multiple times as though it were effortless." Mom looked at me like I betrayed him and seemed baffled when I gave him an evil smile. "We know that you have him wrapped around your finger though. After all, you're the one who decides if he's out on the couch or not."

"Damn straight!" mom let out with a hearty laugh.

"As much as I enjoy hearing about this," the satyr said, pushing through us to stop in front of a door, "If you want to get any training done, then you best hurry. The games will be starting soon and the arena needs to be free by then."

We nodded and followed him quietly as he led us through the door. Every single one of us stopped as we caught sight of two dark figures sparring in the large stone arena.

"Hey, boys!" They stopped as the runner of the coliseum called to them. They were too far away to properly see them, but I could make out that one had raven black hair that looked like it ended at about his shoulder blades and the other's hair was silver and so long that it probably fell to the back of his knees. The black haired one was holding a large sword that was similar to dad's and the silver haired one held a ridiculously long katana. "These people want to train and get some advice from me about what they're doing! Clear the arena for them!"

With that, they merely turned to the seats and sat down. Well, the silver haired one sat down and the raven haired one flopped down so close to the other that he was practically in his lap.

"Okay boys," mom said once we made our way to the recently vacated space. "There were a few too many close calls during that last fight in Wonderland for me to be comfortable. With that in mind, you boys are going to practice dodging today."

^…^…^…^…^

After a few hours of having mom hurl random spells and fireballs from Lionheart at us and the satyr, who had finally introduced himself as "Phil", making us do something or another here and there, our training was done. Mom told us to relax and he and Phil went to discuss what could be done to improve our performance.

"Hey!" Sora and I looked around to find the source of the unfamiliar voice. In a matter of seconds, our eyes became fixed on the raven haired man that was sparing in the arena earlier. He and his companion were approaching us and he was waving at us in a very Yuffie like fashion. After a moment, they stopped just feet in front of us.

The dark haired one wore a wide smile that revealed almost every tooth in his mouth. His bangs fell in two thick locks that framed his face and the rest was spiky in the back, finally resting at just above his shoulder blades. He was clad in a black, sleeveless, turtleneck neck sweater that looked similar to dad's shirt with the exception of the zipper. His pants were also black and were baggy. Shoulder pads adorned his shoulders (Where else would they be?) and black gloves and boots covered his hands and feet. The large sword rested on his back.

The other man was, by far, one of the tallest, if not _the_ tallest, people I had ever seen. Like the other man, his bangs framed his face with two thick forelocks, but they were much longer and straighter. Then again, all of his hair was long and straight. His bangs fell to half way down his chest and everything else went to the back of his knees. He had on a long coat that was held closed with only one of the four buckles done and medal shoulder pads and no shirt. Two straps crossed over his bare chest and his pants fit him just short of being like a second skin and traveled almost seamlessly to his black boots. He held his sword in his hand since it was too damn long to be anywhere else.

"You two are pretty good," the dark haired one said, smile still in place. "Your trainer seems pretty brutal though."

"Yeah, mom can be like that," Sora said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"Mom?" I was surprised that the other man spoke. His voice was deep and smooth.

"We're adopted. Dad came here ahead of us and is around here somewhere." I finally took the time to examine their faces and froze. The dark haired one looked young, almost boyish, but strong and happy. The other's face was perfect and seemed ageless and cold. What shocked me was that their eyes, one pair blue as the sky and the other a deep aquamarine with cat-like pupils, glowed. It was like looking into dad's eyes.

"Is something wrong?" the black haired one asked, concern making his eyes glow slightly brighter. I blurted out the first, and only, thing that came to my mind.

"Does SOLDIER mean anything to you?" I knew I hit the nail on the head when they tensed, their eyes slightly wide with surprise. The silver haired one was the first to recover.

"How do you know of that?" I tried to look him in the eye, but it was difficult. His gaze was unwavering and very intimidating.

"My father was from the world where SOLDIER existed and he used to work for the company they were a part of. His eyes are just like yours and he said that it was the only way to tell a SOLDIER apart from a regular person."

"Really?" the black haired one asked excitedly. "What was his name? If he was SOLDIER then maybe we knew him."

"He wasn't exactly in SOLDIER." I began shifting my weight from foot to foot. The tall one with the long sword was starting to creep me out. "He was an infantryman that was experimented on because some freaky scientist found him interesting." Again, the two tensed up. It was like when I first met my grandparents all over again. "His name is Cloud Strife."

There was a full minute of silence as the two men stared at my brother and me.

"You're," the blue-eyed one tried to begin but had to stop and swallow. "You guys are Cloud's kids?" I nodded. That was when the tension finally broke and he fell over laughing. The other only seemed to tense more and more with each passing second. "Well I'll be damned! Cloud has kids!"

Sora and I looked to each other. We couldn't figure out if we should haul ass and get as far away from the men before us as possible or stay. Our choice was made for us when he got up grabbed us each with one arm to give us a hug.

"I knew he would do well for himself!" He then let us go and gave us another blinding smile. "I'm a friend of your dad's from back then. Maybe he's mentioned me. The name's Zack Fair."

I paused in my attempt to get my breath back from the bone crushing hug I had just received and, again, could do nothing else but stare at the man before me. I was still in shock when mom came back.

"Roxas?" His grey eyes held his motherly concern. "Are you okay? Did something happen to him?" He looked to everyone around me for answers. "Who are you two?"

I grabbed his sleeve and took a deep breath to steady myself. His full, undivided attention was on me.

"The man with black hair is Zack." My words were so quiet that I was amazed that mom heard me, but sure enough, his eyes snapped to the man I had mentioned.

"You're the man that saved Cloud from the man that experimented on him?" The addressed man looked away, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"It wasn't really that big of a deal." Mom seemed shocked to hear him say this. Hell, I knew I was, but, then again, wasn't this kind of reaction exactly like what dad said he was like?

"Wasn't that big of a deal? You died saving him!"

"Really," Zack tried again, his hands up in a surrender like position. "It was the least I could do for him after everything that happened."

I'm sure that I wasn't the only one that noticed the quick glance he sent his companion's way. I also couldn't have been the only one to notice the slight sag the other man's shoulders held or how he looked somehow ashamed.

"Whether it was a big deal to you or not," mom continued, "thank you. If you hadn't have saved him, then I never would have been able to meet him."

"You really love him, huh?" They both gave each other understanding smiles and began to talk. The other man took that opportunity to move away and sit in the stands. I followed after him. I had my suspicions about who he was and I wanted to know if they were right.

"So," I began as I sat down and got straight to the point, "you're Sephiroth, aren't you?"

He nodded. I leaned back and put my hands behind my head as I stared at the sky above me.

"Dad and the others have told me about you." He remained silent. "They told my brother and me about how you went insane and destroyed dad's hometown. You also killed Aeris and almost destroyed the world with meteor fall if I remember correctly."

As stoic as this man was, living with people as expressionless as my parents could be showed me that he was anything but as calm as he made himself look. I could read how ashamed he was of his past actions as though it were a neon sign on his forehead.

"They have told you a lot then." His voice was quiet and I had to strain to hear it.

"You know, it's kind of funny though." I figured it was best to continue as though I hadn't heard him. "Not a single one of them has blamed you."

I could have laughed at the blatant disbelief that was on his face.

"What do you mean that they haven't blamed me?" I couldn't help but smile at him. His past was definitely a heavy burden on him.

"Well, dad is half insane himself. Mom's the only thing keeping him from going off the deep end. Aeris couldn't hold a grudge to save her life, Yuffie and gramps have seen what the mako has done to dad and figure that having as much running through you as you did and how close you were to GENOVA made your insanity inevitable, and Vincent actually blames himself for the whole ordeal. I haven't met the other people that were in dad's group when he fought you, but I'm sure that they feel the same way." The poor guy still seemed completely baffled.

"My son is telling the truth." We both turned our heads as mom's voice rang through the air. He was a couple of feet to our right. "I've spoken to most of the group that stopped you and not a single one of them blame you. I can tell you for a fact that every single person that knew you before Nibelheim still respects the man you were. Cloud wouldn't hesitate to fight you again if he had to stop you to protect everyone, but he also wouldn't hesitate to welcome you back if you seem to be yourself again."

"How could he accept me that easily?" His poker face was still firmly in place, but I knew mom could read it as easily as I could.

"As Roxas said, the mako has torn apart his sanity and he felt the pull of GENOVA almost as strongly as you did. He knows that if he were anywhere near as confused as you were at the time and that if he didn't have Tifa and the others to keep him grounded, he probably would have joined you. The results of what Hojo did to you two isn't something that you guys should be blamed for."

"They're right Seph," Zack cheerfully chipped in. In a second, he was seated in the long haired man's lap giving him a loving embrace. "We're all here for you. If Cloud and the others can forgive you, then it's time to let go."

"I'll try," he replied, also wrapping his arms around the other and burying his face in the raven's shoulder.

**Sadistic-neko: I had planned on doing more for this chap, but I still need to update my other story and figured that this was a good place to stop. Man I love Sephitoth and Zack. There is no way that anyone could play Crisis Core and not. Well, see y'all next chap! Axel and Riku should be showing up in one of the next few chapters.**


	10. Chapter 10

Sadistic-neko: To those of you wondering, yes I am still alive. So much shit has been going on for the last couple of months that I could not find it in myself to type anything. When I finally got around to working on my stories, I didn't have wify. Same old, same old. Any way, I will be in the wify dead zone again soon with the oldest, shitiest computer you can imagine, so updates will have to wait again for a while. I will still be working on the stories and will add new chapters when I can. Just so everyone knows, I have a policy of working on one story at a time so I don't mix up plots and Little Surprises is up next. After that is Tou-san. So, unless I suddenly have some random spark of unstoppable inspiration, this will not be updated for a little while. It will not be abandoned though! It is one of my precious babies and shall be finished even if-

Axel: Okay kitty cat, that's enough. (sweat drops at glare directed at him) You were rambling and you know. I will handle the disclaimer. (Turns to readers) Sadistic-neko does not own Kingdom hearts and hopes that you all will enjoy her latest chapter.

"So," I said, sitting next to Sephiroth as Zack talked to Phil about the newest tournament. It was to start in a matter of hours. Mom was helping Sora with a form that he was having a particularly hard time with. "You used to be a general?"

"Yes." The silver haired man gave short, simple answers. Like mom and dad, he was a man of few words.

"Were you the only one?" He shook his head. "Who were the others? Would I have heard about them?"

"They were Angeal and Genesis." I recognized the first name.

"Wasn't Angeal Zack's mentor?" The tall man nodded.

"Yes." There was a small pause as he seemed to become amused. "He was also the one who started Zack's nickname."

"What's that?" I asked, my head tilted to the side as I stared at the man as his lips curled ever so slightly into a smirk.

"Puppy." There was a moment of silence before I burst out laughing. It definitely suited him. The man was eager to please, was loyal to a fault, and followed Sephiroth like a stray looking for a home.

"How did that happen?" The words were practically barked out as I struggled to compose myself and start breathing again.

"He always described Zack as being like a puppy. It just stuck. Even Angeal's mother called him that." One small, melancholy chuckle escaped him as we sat in comfortable silence. I could see why he, dad, and Zack were friends. Though Sephiroth was a little intimidating and Zack was more hyper than Sora the time he was left alone with a bag of powdered sugar doughnut holes, they were both good people who would do anything for those that they cared about. I couldn't even imagine what Sephiroth was like when he went psycho.

"What about the other guy? Genesis?" The radioactive glow of his aqua eyes dimmed. His fist clenched ever so slightly, his jaw tensed. I sat up, eyeing him carefully. He was uncomfortable, upset even. Whatever this guy did was _bad_.

"He is the one who started all of the events that led to meteor fall." I could feel my brow scrunch. Apparently the question I was about to ask was clear on my face, because Sephiroth continued. "The three of us, being the strongest members of SOLDIER, became friends. Until Zack came around, we could only be natural around each other. There was no fear during our interactions. What was there for the others to fear? We were all the same rank and, as far as anyone else was concerned, approximately the same strength. That wasn't the case, though, a fact that irritated Genesis. I was different than him and Angeal. Stronger, faster, and, most importantly, more physically stable than either one of them."

"What do you mean?" I was worried for the guy's mental health as he let out a dark, scornful laugh.

"They were part of a different project than I was. Angeal was the near perfect one. Like me, the experiment was performed on him while in the womb. Unlike Genesis, he did not suffer from degradation of the cells. When Genesis betrayed Shinra, Angeal left too to try and convince his childhood friend to stop. In the end, he could not join him or kill him, so he fought Zack, died by his hand and gave him the buster sword that had been passed down in his family for generations. Genesis was the one who told me of my origins and why I was different which is what led to me going insane and trying to destroy the world. Zack was then the one who killed him in the end." I was silent. My respect for Zack grew with every word. I couldn't even imagine what it must have been like to kill your own mentor who was like family to you and then be betrayed and almost killed by a friend only to have to kill the last member of your mentor's former group. What must it have taken to be able to smile and be as cheerful as the SOLDIER first class that I owed my father's life to could? "Speak of the devil."

I looked up as I heard the quiet words. As he said, speak of the devil. Zack was running up to us, signaling mom and Sora to come over too. We were all worried when we noticed how agitated he looked. He even fidgeted as he stood, waiting for my mom and brother.

"Is something wrong?" mom asked, worrying like any mother would. Zack's black hair flailed as he nodded.

"I was just talking to Phil about the tournament. When I asked him if anyone looked particularly promising, he told me that there is a newcomer who he thought would do well. He said that he's tall, has spiky blonde hair, eyes a lot like mine and carried a huge sword like mine. I asked if he had the person's name and he checked the roster." We all tensed, knowing what he was going to say. "It's Cloud. I don't know why, but he's going to fight in the tournament."

"That's not too bad, right?" Sora asked as he wrung his hands nervously. "I mean, dad is really strong and he can hold his own."

"That's not the problem," Zack replied, looking even more grave. "He's being sponsored by Hades."

The name alone sent shivers down my spine. Combine that with the look on Zack's normally happy face, and it was absolutely certain that he couldn't be good.

"Who is 'Hades'?" mom asked, clearly worried for dad. His concern shot through the roof as mako enhanced eye met his gray ones in wavering pain.

"He is the god of the underworld who watches over the souls of the dead. He also manipulates the darkness in this word. He is the reason that I've had issues in this world before, but he is also the reason that I met Seph again." The four of us, Sora, mom, Sephiroth, and me, tensed as Zack took in a deep, shaky breath. "When I first came to this world, I had been dead too long to come back my actual age, so I was, basically, reborn. Until about three years ago, I didn't even remember living on Gaia. I couldn't figure out why I was so strong compared to the other people here, or why I was so determined to be a hero. I most certainly didn't know why I was always so excited when I met a person with bright aquamarine eyes or silver hair. What was really concerning, though, was the little control I had over myself. At first, it wasn't so bad. I would have the occasional temper tantrum as a child, got into fights as a young teen. It was only when I was about Roxas and Sora's age that it got bad. Thankfully, I was allowed to enter the games and vent some of that inexplicable bloodlust, but it kept getting worse. During my first tournament, Hades used his control over the darkness to possess me and make me attack friends. I thought that it was because I was so desperate to get into the games and make a name for myself so I left myself open, but it happened again during the next tournament too. I knew damn well what was happening that time, but couldn't fight it like any other person would have been able to. After that, my mind would wander off, and I began to lose my ability tell friend from foe. Little by little I was losing my sanity. Finally, it got so bad that Herc, my best friend on this world and the son of a god, had to physically restrain me with his incredible strength to keep me from attacking the crowd after one of the battles. It was during that particular fit that I remembered being in SOLDIER, and having mako in me. It finally all made sense. The mako was enhancing my strength, and slowly destroying my mind. Because of how weak my mind was becoming without something to ground me, I was like a little puppet for people like Hade who could bend the darkness to their will to control as they saw fit. Not wanting to endanger anyone pointlessly, I left this world to find a place where I wouldn't have to worry about something like that so I could try and learn how to help myself. Instead, I ran into Sephiroth, who was doing the same thing. We quickly realized that what we needed to stay sane was each other. Perfectly sure that we wouldn't lose ourselves anymore, we came back here to try and make a life."

"Are you saying," mom began with a gulp, "that Cloud might be being controlled by this god?"

"I don't know," he replied unsurely, holding Sephiroth's hand for support. "What was done to Cloud was different than what was done to me. He might react differently than I did. You did say that he was having problems holding onto his sanity, right?"

"Yes." Mom nodded. His hands were clenched tightly in his concern. "When we were younger, he would have random fits. He would become excessively violent. We actually had to unleash powerful demons on him to stop him. The only reason even that worked was because he was still so small at the time. It was like he became some rogue, bloodthirsty animal whenever he went into such a rage. Everyone was so relieved when we realized that staying near me helped him retain his sanity."

"Do you have any idea where he is now?" Mom shook his head.

"He landed on this world before us to check it out. He could sense the darkness from the gummi ship and wanted to make sure that it was safe for our boys to be here."

"If it's been such a short amount of time, he might be okay. Either way, we should split up and look for him. We can meet up here in an hour when the games start. If we don't find him by then, Phil is an old friend and I'm sure he would let me back with the contestants even though I'm not fighting this time." We nodded, and broke into three groups. Donald and Goofy were to stay in the arena area in case dad showed there. Zack and Sephiroth, being the most familiar with the coliseum, would search the inside and the inn. Mom, Sora, and I would search the grounds and anywhere else we could access. Before we could depart, though, mom had to ask one more question.

"What does this 'Hades' person look like?"

"You'll know him if you see him."

^…^…^…^…^…^…^…^…^

The time to meet back up with the other two groups was rapidly approaching and we still had yet to find dad. Each one of us was getting more worried every minute.

"It's time to go back," mom said, trying to be strong for us. We could see that he was on the verge of having a breakdown, though. "Hopefully Zack and the others have had better luck."

We nodded and turned around only to stop dead in our tracks as someone was suddenly in our way. Another shiver traveled down my spine as I took the man's appearance in.

He was tall, with blue skin and yellowed black eyes. His hair was blue fire on the top of his head. A long black toga hung all of the way down to the ground, the sleeves ending halfway down his upper arms. It was trimmed with a dark, blackish-green border that had some kind of zigzag pattern in it. The clasp that held the outfit closed was in the shape of a skull and was situated over his right shoulder. Darkness and death permeated off of him in waves. Zack was right. We knew this man was Hades the instant that we laid eyes on him.

"Well, well," he said, looking us over like hunks of meat. "I see that we have some newbies. Did you come here for the tournament?"

Before either my brother or I could say anything, mom grabbed each of us by the shoulder. The amount of pressure, though still gentle, sent a clear message. "Let me handle this." Sora and I did not give any outward sign that we acknowledged the message, but the mere fact that we did not speak, not even motor mouth Sora, let him know that we understood.

"Yes," he said slowly and clearly, not even a hint of distrust could be found in his voice. That was to be expected of a former knight and mercenary. "My sons here and two of our companions are currently in training to become proper warriors. I thought that participating in one of the famous Olympus Coliseum tournaments would greatly benefit them."

We nodded, being sure to keep our faces as carefully blank as mom's was. The god stared at us for a moment, trying to find any deceit in the words. He wouldn't find any. After all, what better lie is there than one laced in the truth. Satisfied that we were being honest with him, he relaxed and stood with his arms crossed.

"So, did the old goat allow you to enter?" Mom shook his head.

"He said that they weren't 'hero' material. Apparently they are just pipsqueaks." Again, it was a truthful lie. Oh the joy and inherent usefulness of such oxymorons and paradoxes. I almost jumped when the underworld's lord burst out laughing. He was just short of falling over and rolling on the floor by the time that he finally calmed down.

"He's obviously losing his touch if he can't see these two boys' potential." I inwardly cringed as he put his hand on my shoulder in a kind of proud or congratulatory pat. Mom's hand on my other shoulder tightened in barely controlled fury and protectiveness. He stiffened too when the god reached in his robes to pull something out. I knew that if he showed any sign of being a threat, mom would chop off his blue arm and shove down his throat faster than he could blink. We were all surprised when he held a slip of paper out to mom. "I think your boys can go far, so here's a pass to enter the games. Have fun!"

There was a moment of confused silence after he poofed away as soon as the pass was in mom's hand.

"He is one of the weirdest bad guys I have ever seen." Mom and I nodded and then turned around to meet up with the other groups.

"Do not acknowledge Zack and Sephiroth when we see them," mom said to us under his breath before we entered the training/waiting room of the coliseum. I barely glanced at him of corner of my eye and I could easily imagine that he was the SEED mercenary again in the middle of an important, dangerous mission. His back was as ram rod straight as it could be without causing any suspicion. In fact it wouldn't have been noticed by anyone who wasn't looking for a change in him and knew him well. His head was held high with all of the pride as the lion that dad often called him as with his hair flaring gracefully and deadly behind him. His lips had barely moved when he spoke.

"Why?" was all that Sora dared to ask, afraid to give us away. He was doing an impressive job of being inconspicuous for being him.

"Hades knows of Zack at least. If we are to let him think that he is playing us into whatever game he is trying to play, then we need to make sure that he doesn't discover that we know his true nature and at least some of the cards he has up his sleeves." We nodded the minutest movement of the head possible. There was only one conceivable hole in the plan.

"What if they approach us?" I asked in a whisper that anyone who was not directly involved in our secret conversation would mistake for the wind. I was a lot more stone faced and naturally quiet so this came easier to me than it did my twin.

"They won't." I didn't even have to time ask how he knew that before he answered. "Your father taught me a kind of sign language that SOLDIER, Terk, and infantryman alike knew. It was used on missions where discretion was of the upmost importance."

That made perfect sense to me. Dad may not have said what he and his fellow members of Shinra's private army did on their missions, but I didn't need to ask. The horror of what he and the others had seen was plain on their faces and as easy to read as a book. It was no surprise to me that they would have missions that required stealth. One sound, hell, one wrong _syllable_, could spell utter disaster and death.

I pulled myself out of my morbid musings as we arrived at the designated meeting area. Luckily for us, Donald and Goofy were the only ones there. We calmly approached them as Donald ran to us. Alarm rang through me as he opened his big beak. He was going to give us away if we didn't do something.

"Did you find Cl-," he all but yelled before howling in pain as I stomped my foot on his flatter, webbed one. He hopped around in pain, screaming obscenities and glaring at me. One glance to Goofy after that was enough to make him to stay quiet. I would have sighed in relief that he got the message if it didn't hold the chance of blowing our cover.

"Okay everyone," mom began before Donald could continue, "We have a pass to enter the games. I want you guys to warm up while I have your names put on the roster. Remember, this is a good chance for you to improve your skills and learn. Be loose and ready by the time I return and meet me in the room with the other contestants."

Throughout the whole conversation, mom's arms and hands moved. All of the movement were small and discreet, something that just about anyone would do while involved in a conversation. It had to be the sign language that he had mentioned before. After all, mom never gesticulated like that. We gave him an affirmative before he turned around to sign us up for the tournament. In the far corner of the arena, sitting in the seats like they were waiting for the games to start, I saw the outline of the two SOLDIER first classes waiting in the shadows. They gave the slightest nod to us before pulling sand colored cloaks over their heads.

^….^….^….^….^….^….^….^

"Okay boys," mom said as he healed the last of our minor injuries with a light cure spell. Donald, as the designated magician, would have, but we needed to save as much of our strength as we could. "You guys have done well so far, but you can't let your guard down. Your next fight is against Cloud."

It was such a relief to be able to say dad's name without worrying that Hades would know that we were planning something. His name was on the roster, after all, and he was our next opponent, so it wouldn't be unusual to know it by now. That wasn't what was important at the time though. As mom had said, we had been doing well in the tournament. Form what we had heard, it had changed from having actual human combatants, or whatever sentient creature that was participating, making up the majority of the battles with heartless filling in the blank spots. Now it was almost all heatless against a very small number of competitors. So far, that was all that our team had fought against. We could have been in trouble otherwise since we were much more used to fighting the creatures of darkness than people capable of complex though and strategy. Luckily, though, the only problem that we had encountered was some damn truffles that turned to stone and expelled poison. They were weak but they were a pain in the ass.

Before we knew it, we were being shoved through the door to the arena for the final match against our own father. Seeing him was a mixed blessing and curse. He looked well, standing tall with no injuries whatsoever, but something about him looked kind of ragged. It had to be his eyes. They were shining brighter than we had ever seen and, from past experience, we knew that was bad. Their intensity only increased like that when he was angry or losing his sanity. Not to mention that there was a thin black aura surrounding him. I didn't think that it was enough to control him, but was definitely messing with his head.

Despite these concerning observations, we charged as the horn signifying our match's beginning rang through the air. It wasn't much of a battle to write home about. Dad was still aware enough to go easy on us but make it look convincing. We still had a hard time dodging him occasionally even though we were so familiar with his attacks and the battle cries he did before each and every one of them. It still looked like we were going to win when the battle took a turn for the worse.

Dad was so focused on not accidentally killing us that he didn't notice the giant three headed dog falling from the damn sky and straight onto his head. As his body was crushed, it made the most disturbing sounds imaginable. The dog reared up again to make what very well could have been a finishing blow when a man wearing the local garb put himself under the canine's foot and used some rather impressive strength to keep the paw up with one hand and grab our father to sling him over his shoulder with the other.

"Get out of here," the bulky man said, looking over his shoulder at us. "I've got this."

We could hear the impact of the beast hitting the ground from being thrown as we ran to the lobby where our very worried mother waited for us. He ran to us the moment that he saw us and did his routine field examination of us. I tried pushing him off though. As much as his concern would increase, he needed to know what was going on.

"Mom, let go!" I all but screamed at him. My voice was frantic and that caught the lion's attention immediately. His hands stopped patting me down in search of imaginary injuries and froze. His wide eyes locked onto mine. It would break my heart to see the pain that I just knew was going to appear in those storm clouds, but I took a deep breath and pushed forward. "Dad's hurt."

"What?" he asked in an anguished whisper. His eyes widened in disbelief. What the hell could hurt _Cloud Strife_? "What happened?"

"A giant three headed dog just stepped on him. It sounded like quite a few things broke. Some guy showed up and pulled him out of the way. I think that he's protecting him now." Phil tensed up and peaked out of the one of the windows into the arena.

"Damn," he muttered and looked at us. "That's Cerberus. I don't know what you did, but Hades must think that you're some kind of threat to sic _him_ on you. It's a good thing that Herc showed up when you did or you would probably be dog chow by now."

"We need to go back out there," Sora said, his eyes shining with determination. The old satyr bristled up and his face turned tomato red.

"Did you not hear me?" he asked in a worried, stressed out rage. "That dog out there is the guardian of the underworld! He would eat you up and spit out your bones before you even knew what hit you! Just leave it to Herc!"

Mom stepped to the goat man in a way that was calm that it was terrifying. Then, faster than any of us could follow, he grabbed him by the back of his neck and lifted him up to eye level. Sora, Donald, Goofy and I stood with our jaws on the floor as the trainer's hooves flailed around like he was trying to run on air while mom sent his a glare that was on level with that of grandmother Chaos'.

"No, I don't understand," he said slowly in a chilling voice. "All I know is that my _husband_ and the my _children's father_ is out there unconscious, and flung over 'Herc's' shoulder while he is fighting that creature. Now, listen and listen real good. We may not be some damn 'hero' with his visage in the stars or whatever is the tradition here, but we have faced adversity like nothing you could ever dream of. My mother is a man with four demon's sealed inside of him and my father is a stubborn old pilot how wouldn't give up on something regardless of the risk even if you paid him to. Just like they would, I'll be damned if I just sit here and wait for something to happen when I could be out there with my son's fighting that thing while my husband is brought to where he can safely heal. I suggest that you keep your mouth shut and let us go before I fry your ass and feed it mutt outside, understand?"

The suspended man nodded frantically in fear. Mom nodded once before dropping the satyr on is ass and motioning for us to follow him.

The halls flew passed us as we ran. Everything blurred in our haste and yet each second felt like an hour knowing that dad was still out there and possibly sustaining more injuries. We all knew that dad had some amazing healing enhancements, but we didn't know the extent of the injuries he already had or how much time the healing would need.

After what felt like an eternity, we damn near broke down the doors to the arena. The crowd was gone leaving the stands empty and Zack and Sephiroth were nowhere to be seen. The only living things, other than us obviously, were Hercules, Cerberus, and dad. Mom didn't even give them to realize that we were there. The instant that we set eyes on the three, he shot off three fiery blasts from Lionheart. Each shot hit a canine head, dazing it long enough for the hero to turn around and see us.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked running towards us like he was going to hand dad over. "This is too dangerous! Take this guy and let me handle this!"

"No," mom replied with a hard glare, stopping the man as he about to relinquish his burden. "_You_ take him and let _us_ handle him."

"You guys have no idea what you're up against." The demigod's voice was firm as he looked over his shoulder to see if the giant monster had regained his senses yet. This only pissed mom off more. He hated being underestimated and, like all moms, being talked back to when he gave an order.

"Look"—I was surprised that there was no angry waver to his voice—"this man is my husband. Though you seem perfectly capable of lifting him, things were done to him years ago that makes him far too heavy for our sons and me combined to even dream of moving him. We are perfectly capable of handle this. If you don't believe me then run Cloud somewhere safe and come back to help us."

There was a few seconds where neither man budged. Gray and eyes were locked in a match that neither was willing to back out of. Finally, Hercules seemed to see something that made him trust mom. He gave one curt nod and bolted passed us to deposit dad somewhere safe. With that, the giant dog woke from his daze and the battle began.

It was an irritating and dangerous battle to say the least. All three heads had razor sharp teeth that would snap if we got too close. If we were far away, he would send energy balls at us and dark pools would erupt beneath our feet. Each paw also weighed a ton and would send shock waves through the ground so severe that they were only second to when the beast came down after rearing up. Finally, when my brother, our animal companions, and I were just about at our wit's end, mom motioned that he would distract the heads and for us to attack from the sides and try to take out least one set of jaws.

We nodded and waited until all three heads were focused on mom and his now glowing blade. Slowly and making as little noise as possible, we made our way to either side. Sora was teamed with Goofy and I had Donald as my partner. At the same time, we jumped in the air. Imagine our horrified surprise when our targets noticed us and went to make a chomp. We were completely vulnerable and sure that we were about to have our top halves separated from our bottoms ones when something strange happened.

At the last minute, both heads were stopped from hitting us two individual forces. The one about to devour Sora got a mouthful of some kind of shield made from the darkness. The head aiming for me was shoved out the way by some projectile that I could see clearly because of the sheer speed it was moving at and the flames that it was engulfed in.

As stunned as we were, the training that our parents and grandparents put us through would not let us miss such a golden opportunity to make the battle changing hit. With as much force as we could muster, we swung our keyblades down and jumped out of the way of our companions' following attacks as quickly as possible. The final head went down via a well timed attack from mom.

"Wow," we heard from behind us. Weapons still at the ready, we all turned around to find that Herc and Phil had just arrived. "You guys are good. I thought for sure that you would need my help."

"I've faced much worse," mom said with a regal flip of his hair as he stuck Lionheart in the ground before him. As soon as the brown locks settled he met eyes with the demigod. "Where is Cloud?"

As if the universe decided to answer for the other man, a huge explosion came from the direction of the lobby. Every person other than mom, who merely let loose a semi-exhausted sigh, jumped. We were just about to run and investigate when mom held us back. This also got the other four's attention. We were all confused when he shook his head slightly.

"It would be better to just wait for him. Moving around will just rile him up more."

"Who?" Phil asked his worried gazed never veering from the destruction coming our way.

"Cloud." He looked ten years older as he glanced at our weapons. "You should put those away too. He might think that there is still a threat around and, in his confused state of mind, mistake the others as a threat and attack them."

No sooner had my twin and I made our weapons disappear did our dad knock down the doors just behind the two residents of the world that we were on. The darkness that we had seen thinly veiling him during our battle was now flowing around him in thick waves. His radioactively glowing eyes quickly searched around him before zeroing in on my mom, my brother and me. Mom grabbed our hands and pulled us with him as he took a few step forward.

"It's okay," he said as if he were talking to a rabid animal. I had a feeling that it was directed to both the man in front of us, and Sora and me. The smaller brunette and I followed his silent command to stay put when he let us go to hold his arms out to dad. "Come here Cloud."

Without further prompting, the blonde leapt over the two in his way and landed right in front of us. Before we could even blink, we were on the ground and he was sniffing and snuffling us. Mom just wrapped his arms around his lover and petted his back.

"We're okay Cloud. The boys and I are safe. Please come back now." More soothing sweet nothings where whispered into his ear. He tightened his hold on the man, though, when we heard growling. Somebody had gotten too close to us and had sent dad in his primal trance into a small rage. Running steps were heard shortly after and Sora and I joined mom in trying to calm dad down.

"Dad," my twin began, his lip was quivering in fear and how close to tears he was. "The darkness is bad. You have to let go of it. Please dad, you're scaring me."

"Yeah dad," I said, squeezing my way between my parents to hug around his waist. Mom moved to the side and put his arms around dad's shoulders and started funning a hand through blonde spikes. Sora hugged his chest as tightly as he could with a small sob. "We need you, so you need to come back."

I almost smiled as the darkness receded and the low growling that he had been emitting turned into a deep, rumbling purr. In a matter of seconds, he pulled us all into his lap and side. Mom chuckled a little as dad nuzzled into the crook of his neck, completely relaxed and content. The moment ended as a certain loud mouth that was not Sora opened his mouth and dad stiffened at the sound of their voice.

"Look Seph! Doesn't chocobo head and his family make the cutest little picture?" Every pair of eyes in the area snapped to the two SOLDIER first class.

"Damn it Zack! How many times do I have to tell that I'm not a damn chocobo head," dad yelled, a stark contrast to how calm he was seconds early. As soon as his brain caught up to his mouth, he stared in shock. "Wait, Zack, is that really you?"

"Of course!" the raven haired man replied with a huge grin as he took a few steps forward and leaned down so that he was on the same level as dad. "Were you expecting anyone else?"

"I should have know that a little thing like the world ending wouldn't keep you down." It was like dad was a teenager again as he gave a low laugh as he gently moved the three of us who he was still holding to our feet. When he got to his feet, he looked passed us all and noticed Sephiroth standing tense and looking at everything except our little group. "I see that the general is here too."

"Yeah," Zack said rubbing the back of his neck a bit awkwardly. "I found him while I was traveling before. He's good again, I swear."

"I could tell that just by looking at him." Seeing dad snort was strange. We brought a lot of emotions out of him, but this was like he was never messed up in the first place. "Are you just going to stand there or are you going to come over here and say 'hi'?"

The silver haired man slowly made his way over and relaxed a little as Zack grabbed his hand. Finally, he looked dad in the eye and nodded towards us.

"You have quite the family there Strife. Your boys are very skilled as if your mate."

"Thanks," dad said with a little smile before laughing. "You haven't seen anything yet, though. The real pieces of work are with sis back in Traverse Town."

Zack perked up like the puppy that his mentor likened him to as he heard that.

"Sis? Do you mean Aeris? Did she come back too?"

"Yes." It was a shame to see dad slowly revert back to his quiet, fairly stony self, but I guessed it for the best. He had grown a lot since he last saw his two friends and the past was the past. The present him was he had become and who he would continue to grow from. He would never be completely sane again, but that didn't mean that he couldn't be happy and healthy.

^….^….^….^….^….^

After a few hours of catching up, mom, dad, Zack, and Sephiroth made a decision on what was going to happen from then on out. They would all head to Traverse Town and leave Sora, Donald, Goofy, and me to continue our adventure on our own.

"You've learned a lot and can handle yourselves now," mom said to us with a sad smile. He gave us both a hug and handed us some packs. "I've picked up some items that should help you guys out. Now be careful, okay?"

"We will mom," Sora replied with a shaky voice and wet eyes as we hugged mom back. He pulled back with a watery smile. "Don't forget that we also have Donald, Goofy, the keyblades, and our own demon bodyguards to protect us."

"True," dad said, ruffling our hair lightly. "Be that as it may, I agree with your mother. You need to be careful. Remember, if we find out that you weren't, then you would have us, your aunts, you new uncles, and your grandparents ready to tan your asses."

We gave unsure laughs to that, unsure whether or not he was being serious. The last thing that we wanted was for any of them to try and punish us, especially our grandmother. Any of the five of his forms. We had many a horror story about his disciplinary actions.

"Are you sure that you don't want us to help rebuild the parts of the coliseum that we broke?" mom asked Phil before we stepped onto our separate gummi ships.

"It's not a problem. We're used to this kind of damage. Oh, and here." He held out four passes to me. I could feel my brow crinkle in confusion as I switch between looking at them and the satyr. "They're passes marking you as Junior Heroes and allowing you to participate in the games from now on."

"Hey," Donald squawked so loudly that my ears began ringing. "What do you mean 'Junior Heroes'?"

"You guys still don't have what it takes to be true heroes." The old goat sighed like he had given this speech a hundred times. He probably had.

"And what's that?" Sora asked, just as peeved as the duck.

"If you have to ask, then you don't have it." Goofy and I quickly pulled our companions into our ship before they could blow up. As the door shut, I yelled out the opening to our parents.

"Love you, mom, dad! Tell everyone that we send our regards! We'll you see you back on Travers Town soon!" They all waved back and we took our seats as the door sealed. It was time to prove that we had what it took to go out on our own and find another world. After all, our journey was far from over.


	11. Chapter 11

Sadistic-neko: Hey everyone! I finally got around to typing this! Sorry it took so long. Some other story ideas popped in my head and wouldn't leave me alone until I started typing them. Anyway, one of those story ideas is a prequel to this very story about Cloud and Leon's relationship and how it began. If you want me to post it once I feel I have enough done to not have to worry about getting as far behind as this, Tou-san, and Little Surprises, let me know. Well, as usual (turns to readers) I do not own Kingdom Hearts and I hope that y'all enjoy my latest chapter!

It was strange traveling without our parents. Ever since that day they found us when Sora and I were three, we had never been without at least one of them for more than a few hours. Don't get me wrong, the fact that they trusted us to be able to do this journey and fight to save the worlds on our own without getting killed was awesome. That did not change the fact that their absence was blaringly obvious.

Choosing not to dwell on it any farther, I leaned back in my seat watching the typical scene of my brother staring in awe out the window and jumping around in excitement. As per usual, Donald was getting irritated as all hell at the dope and was randomly yelling at him to sit down and be quiet. I wondered if he realized that he was three times louder than the brunette had ever been and had a voice that was almost as pleasant as listening to nails against a chalk board. Oh well, I didn't really care enough to point it out.

"Hey look!" Sora yelled, gluing his face to the window like an excited three year old. I shook off the déjà vu and leaned forward to see what my twin was pointing out better. "It's a new world!"

I stood up and joined him, not the least bit surprised that he was, yet again, the first one to notice the world outside that we were about to encounter. This one was a lot wilder than all of the other ones we had seen. Everything was moss green and a giant tree stood proudly at the top. Nestled in its branches was a large tree house with a crane like thing sticking out of it holding a boat. Vines and branches grew and stuck out everywhere, all green with the local foliage sprouting from them. The most eye catching part of this world, for me at least, was the majestic waterfall spilling out to somewhere unknown.

"There's no way the king would be there," Donald squawked after examining the new world for a moment. It was when he began to turn away from it that all hell broke loose.

"What are you doing?!" Sora exclaimed in shock. "Why are you moving away from that world?"

"The king wouldn't go to a place like that. Since there's no way he would be there we aren't going." If the duck hadn't been steering our ship, then I was sure that he would have had his wings crossed and his bill turned up away from my brother. To think that I used to be under the impression that Sora would always be the most immature person I would ever know.

"You don't' know that!" I rolled my eyes as my twin childishly stomped his foot. "He could have gone there! Even if he didn't, aren't we supposed to be helping the worlds? What if there are heartless down there hurting people?"

"I'm inclined to agree with Sora," I said, uttering words I never thought would slip past my lips regarding a serious topic. It was a strange day indeed when the goof said something so mature. "It it our job as the Keybearers to help keep the worlds from being destroyed by the darkness. We should at least take a look to make that that world is safe."

"No!" We all jumped at the shrill yell. "Our job is to find the king! I say we're not going so we aren't!"

I was one second too late to try and grab my brother as he flung himself at the duck. As soon as he made contact, the two became some cliché cloud of dust with random appendages popping into view as the sound of flesh viciously connecting rang through the small space. The most concerning part was that the odd limb was frequently hitting the control panel. With every blow, the ship began to shake more and more until Goofy and I could no longer stand.

As the constant jarring got worse, the dog and I were barely able to get a secure enough grip on something solid to pull ourselves up again. My ribs and limbs, which had been painfully flung into anything and everything that was and was not stationary in the ship, thanked me. Small items still hit me, but it was nowhere near as painful as smashing into the front seats had been.

"We've got to stop them," I screamed over the alarms that were starting to go off, warning of the impending crash we were about to experience. Long, floppy black ears flailed as he fervently nodded. We began a silent count down, watching our targets intently for an opening. At last, there was a pause and I threw myself at the brown blob that I could barely make out from the violent shaking around us and the fact that he was already starting to move again. In that same instant, Goofy swung out one of his long, gangly arms and hooked it around the struggling duck.

There was no time to feel relived that we had finally stopped the idiotic fight. As soon as I had my arms successfully hooked my brother's and Goofy had pulled the raging mage to him, the gummi ship gave its largest lurch yet. In the blink of an eye, we found ourselves flying through the windshield of the small vessel and falling to the world beneath us.

^…^…^…^…^…^…^…^

"I'm going to kill you!" I screamed, leaping at the moron brunette running like hell to get away from me. He could run all he wanted. It was only a matter of time until I caught up to him and strangled him.

"I said I was sorry," he yelled back, narrowly dodging a piece of wood that I chucked at his head. It was easy to imagine that fire was coming out of every office in my face considering I was so furious. Did he really think that a simple 'sorry' was going to be good enough to make up for the utter shit he caused? "Donald was the one being a jerk anyway!"

"I don't care! You didn't have to start to a fight with him! It's because you two simpletons couldn't just talk it out and leave it be that we were _hurled_ out of our ship to _who knows where_!" I waved my hand angrily at our surroundings for emphasis. We had landed in the tree house I had noticed earlier head first. So, not only were we without our companions on a strange world, but I was also nursing the headache of a century. "We don't know what the hell is on this world, Sora! What if we run into something that we can't handle by ourselves, huh? Because of you and that damn duck, we're screwed right now if we need magic! In case you have forgotten, we don't know very many spells and, I don't know about you, but my pack is still on the ship. Without that pack, I don't have any of my items."

The brunette opened his mouth to retort and, to both of our surprise, a roar echoed through the room instead. Its source leapt out, claws unsheathed and ready to rip us to bits. All of my anger instantly shifted to pure terror as instinct was the only thing that kept me from losing my head as a yellow and black shape narrowly missed me.

Keyblades, both singular and dual, were out and ready in less than a second. With hearts hammering in our chests, we turned to confront our attacker. A large cat that was probably bigger than the two of us combined stood, ready to pounce again, before us. Its base color was yellow and it had a multitude of dark spots all over its body. Long, sharp claws and equally deadly fangs were bared in the desire to kill us and make us its next meal.

Scared shitless, we defended ourselves the best we could against the beast. It was too agile, though. Before we even knew what hit us, a massive paw slammed into me, sending me almost all of the way across the structure. Seeing this, my brother tried to run to me to help me in some way or another. Instead of whatever heroic rescue he had planned, he proved that he deserved his title of king of all klutzes as he tripped halfway to me in perfect striking range of the predator.

Just as I was sure that he was a goner, a man appeared out of seemingly nowhere and blocked the cat's attack with a spear. He was a tall man with tan skin. His chocolate colored hair was in tight ringlets that greatly resembled dreadlocks. Blue eyes that were a few shades duller than my brother's and my own glared at the beast. I wasn't sure if the intimidating effect of the look was deceased or heightened due to the fact that the man wore nothing more than a brown loincloth. Shockingly enough, the cat seemed to take the silent threat of the human seriously and ran off, crashing through a window to make his escape.

My twin and I stared at the man in total awe as he turned to us.

"Sabor," he grunted out as though he were unused to speaking our language. He paused and thought for a moment, trying to find the right word. "Danger."

Well, that was obvious. After all, the thing had nearly _killed_ us. I fought back my irritation, knowing that none of this was the man's fault and feeling grateful to him for saving my brother even if I was still panning on killing him in the near future.

"Uh, thank you," Sora said, picking himself off of the floor. His eyes never left me, muscles tense and ready to bolt at the first sign that I was going to act on the murderous waves he must have felt coming off of me.

"Thank you," the man repeated, testing out the words like they were unfamiliar.

"What is this place," I asked, unconsciously mimicking a common pose that mom would make by pinching the bridge of my nose and taking a deep breath to try and ease my headache regardless of how annoyed I was. I couldn't help but sympathize with the former mercenary. How the hell did he put up with this shit on a daily basis? I would definitely need to thank him and apologize for all of the shit we put him through the next time I saw him. That and ask for pointers.

"This place, this place." Okay, the man that saved us either needed help or really didn't know how to speak. The saying, 'monkey see, monkey do,' popped in my head watching him repeating everything that Sora and I said with curiosity.

"Okay, where did the others go?" I was just about to bash my head against a wall. Didn't my brother get that this guy didn't understand us? I mean, seriously, small words were confusing the poor man! What the hell made my brother think that he would understand a full sentence like that? "We got separated from our friends. Have you seen them?"

Yep, if it wasn't official before, it was now. My twin was a complete idiot. The man just tilted his head in confusion. Then, as if it would help, the moron leaned closer to our loincloth clad savior with his hands held up.

"Friends," he said slowly, bringing his raised hands to his chest. Come on, like that would help anything!

"Friends." The man repeated again, including the pointless movement that the dope in front of him made.

"Right, our friends." The words came out in a rush as he mistakenly thought that the man finally understood. "There's two of them. The loud one is Dona…" He cut himself off as if just remembering that he was mad at the duck. Before the dumbass could say anything else, I grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"We're not getting anywhere," I sighed out, looking at the new man. May as well see if he had a name and try to introduce ourselves. He beat me to that idea.

"Tarzan." Both of his hands came to rest on his chest as he indicated himself. Okay, weird name, but I wasn't really one to talk.

"Roxas." I repeated his movement, hoping that it would get the point across. He tested my name out, clearly fascinated by it before turning to look at Sora expectantly. The teen just looked at him blankly before realization dawned on him.

"Sora." My brother made an over exaggerated motion similar to what the man and I did with enthusiasm. Damn did I just want to take a nap and be oblivious to the world. Was that too much to ask? Of course it was. Heaven forbid I be given enough time with some peace and quiet to let that happen.

With introductions out of the way, the man spoke some gibberish that just sound like a ton of grunts and hoots to us and indicated for us to follow him. Having no idea where we were anyway, we figured that we had nothing to lose by following him. There was also a chance that there were more dangerous animals lurking about like that 'Sabor'.

The man was obviously both comfortable and familiar with his surroundings. It was all that Sora and I could do to keep up with him as he scaled trees, leapt across branches, surfed over moss covered limbs, and swung form vine to vine. He had to be a monkey in disguise. I was sure of it.

At last, we reached a camp. It was surprisingly well equip considering who led us there. Tables were covered in all kinds of chemistry equipment like beakers. A flag pole stood proudly by a large pile of crates and a couple yellow tents were scattered about. Our guide went straight for the largest one.

"Jane," he said as he entered, earning the attention of a young, brunette lady. She turned from fiddling with some machine in the middle of the tent and smiled at him. Her semi-long brown hair was half pulled up out of her face, leaving her blue eyes clearly visible. She wore a very casual ensemble of a white tank-top and a brown wrap for a long skirt.

"Hello Tarzan. Oh." Her eyes widened a little as she noticed my twin and me standing next to her friend. She leaned forward to get a better look at us with her hands on her knees to support herself. "And who would you be? Friends of Tarzan?"

"Hello ma'am," I said politely like mom had literally beaten into my head. She jumped again before smiling at me.

"So you speak English. Obviously not related to Tarzan." The last part seemed to have been more her speaking to herself. "My name is Jane Porter. Are you here to study the gorillas too?"

"Roxas." I shook hands with her. "This is my brother Sora. No, we're not here to study anything. We had an accident, were separated from our friends, and just ended up here."

I ignored the scoff my brother let out at the mention of Donald and Goofy. If he wanted to be an immature brat, then that was his business. He had just better be ready for when I finally completely snapped because it wasn't going to be pretty.

"Miss Porter." We all turned to where a man was confidently walking in. He was tall with a strong jaw, beak-like nose, a tiny mustache, and slicked black hair with grey temples. His outfit, a yellow jacket and kaki pants, was undoubtedly hunting attire. This was made more obvious by the shotgun in his right hand. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. "I found these two wandering around in the bamboo thicket."

A second later, Donald and Goofy were visible as the rather bulky man stepped out of the way. As soon as Sora and Donald saw each other, they charged to each other excitedly. They jumped about happily for a moment before remembering their argument and turning stubbornly away from each other with their arms crossed.

"Look you two," I said, sick of their idiocy. "Just say sorry and make up already. You're getting on my nerves."

"He started it," they said at the same time, glaring at each other as soon as the words passed their lips or beak. The only warning I gave them was letting an exasperated sigh fall from my lip before I calmly walked up to them. At first, I just put my hands on their shoulders. They watched me warily, not sure what to make out of the seemingly placating gesture. Twin yelps screeched through the air as I finally snapped my hands to the back of their heads and slammed their foreheads together.

"Now what was that?" I asked, glaring at them intensely. I am very proud to say that it was very close to the intensity of mom's glares. "Did you two say something?"

"Sorry!" I grinned.

"That's what I thought. Now what is our plan?"

"We're staying," Donald said immediately, surprising my brother and me. Wasn't he the one who was so hell bent on not visiting this world? He didn't say anything else though, angry that he had been wrong before and that we were right. This world was apparently worth stopping by.

"Look," goofy said holding something out. Sora and I stared at the little thing that was in his hands. It was strangely shaped and red-orange. "It's a gummi block. They're what our ship is made from."

"So that means that the king might have been here, right?" The giant dog nodded. I turned to the woman, Jane. "Have you seen any other strangers like us?"

"I'm afraid not." Her gaze fell to Tarzan. "Tarzan might have though. He was raised by the gorillas and knows this jungle better than anyone. Well, Tarzan, have you seen their friend?"

The man just looked at us all confused. He understood some of what we were saying, but most of it went over his head. That must have been so frustrating.

"Well, I've patrolled most of this jungle and haven't seen anyone like that." Clayton caught our attention, leaning against his gun. "If he's here, there's only one place he would be and Tarzan here refuses to take us there. The gorilla's home."

"What do you say Tarzan?" Jane asked the man. "Will you take them to your home so they can look for their friend?"

The loincloth clad man just stared for a moment, lost in thought. It was a hard decision for him. At last he nodded.

"See Kerchak." We were a little confused but went with it. Kerchak must have been the gorilla's leader or something. Since we had no idea where we were going, we just followed him out of the tent.

It took a while for us to reach our destination. We had to pass through a lagoon filled with giant, round animals with big teeth that Clayton called 'hippos'. They seemed docile enough since they were mainly sleeping, but the care that the primate raised man took while going over and around them made me think that they were dangerous. What took the longest was climbing the vine to the canopy above. Sora and I had no problem with it. We had climbed much more difficult obstacles on our island. Our companions, with the exception of Tarzan, had no such skill.

By the time that Sora and I reached the top, having gone after everyone else to catch anyone who fell, Tarzan was in a deep conversation with a large, black furred animal that somewhat resembled a very burly and hairy man. Well, I assumed it was deep. In truth, I didn't understand a word of it. After a moment, the large creature, which I was assuming was one of those 'gorillas' that everyone was going on about, looked up towards the tree house and the whole group of Tarzan's family followed him. One, which I was pretty sure was a female, looked back at the man for a moment in both longing and fondness.

Not missing a beat, we followed after them as best we could. We had to take a longer path, climbing a tree with the ivy growing on it and traversing the leafy canopy until the tree house was back in view. Clayton went ahead of us.

I grew worried as I saw Donald jump before his screeching voice yelled at the man. Sora, getting the same bad feeling that I was, ran with me. My heart near froze when the gunshot rang. We skidded to a halt, looking frantically inside the building only to see a young gorilla cowering. There was a hole in the floor from the gunshot a mere few feet from her.

"What was that for?" Donald screamed. For once, I agreed with that aggravating voice.

"Well, I was-," the hunter stammered, desperately looking for an excuse. His eyes lit up with an idea. "There was a snake! I saved that poor gorilla's life."

"Bullshit," I growled. If that asshole honestly thought that he would get away with what he just tried, he had another thing coming. I would not tolerate someone trying to senselessly kill an innocent animal like that. He was just lucky that mom wasn't there. He would have shoved Lionheart up the dick's ass and then jack Dad's First Tsurugi to join it before letting off a couple of shots to see how _he_ liked it.

The gorillas looked at a distraught Tarzan disappointedly before turning and leaving again. The gorilla that Clayton shot at stayed only a second longer before following.

Furious, Sora and I each grabbed one of the man's arms and began to drag him back to the camp. Jane was just as mad as we were. She chewed him out for over an hour before the hunter stormed out.

"I can't believe him!" the nice seeming woman yelled, throwing her hands up. "We're here to study, not hunt the poor things! What was he thinking?!"

Her rant was cut off by a loud sound from outside. On instinct, we rushed outside, weapons ready. Heartless were all over the camp, holding a gorilla hostage. We killed all of the demons, saving the animal. It dropped a gummi for us and ran off as soon as the coast was clear. The next few hours were spent running around saving its brethren. We were beat by the time we finished and met back in the tent.

"I…think… that's the… last of… them," Sora panted out, supporting himself with his hands on his knees. The rest of us were in pretty much the same shape.

"I hope Clayton's okay," Jane said, worriedly looking to the tent's entrance. No sooner had the words passed her lips than a gunshot rang through the air. We groaned and then rushed back out to the bamboo thicket.

The only thing we found there was the asshole hunter's pipe and one very pissed off cat. Claws met keyblades and kitty would randomly run to hide in the thick clusters of shafts, but it wasn't really much of a fight. Now that Tarzan was with us and we weren't scared out of our minds, it was quite easy to take the beast down.

"What do you think this means?" Sora asked, holding up the abandoned pipe. I groaned again.

"It means that we have _another_ person to save. I would much rather just leave him to the heartless, but that wouldn't be right." Sora nodded. "Damn mom and his persistent morals lessons."

"Shouldn't we let Jane know what happened?" Goofy asked. We nodded and then turned back to the camp. If we were lucky, nothing else could go wrong.

We weren't lucky. It was obvious that something was wrong as soon as we stepped into the tent. There were claw marks on the main support beam and everything was either knocked over or shredded. Most importantly, Jane was missing. Seeing the state that the tent was in and the absence of the woman who was teaching Tarzan, I snapped.

With a growl that I was sure grandmother Chaos would be proud of, I stomped out to the main camp area and started decimating every little heartless bastard I came across. The rest of the group gave me a wide berth, afraid of what I would to them should they so much as _breathe_ wrong. By the time I found Jane and the gorilla that Clayton had attacked earlier, Terk, the heartless were running away doing their equivalent of pissing their pants.

Tarzan and Sora handled calming Jane and Terk down while I vented some more frustration on the evil black fruit that kept summoning the demons that were only a small part of my over all aggravation. They found out quickly enough that it was the dick Clayton who was controlling the heartless that attacked them and that he was going after the rest of Tarzan's family at the cliffs.

With that information, we made our way to the aforementioned destination just in time to see the ass wipe aiming for the poor animals.

"Stop!" Sora screamed like the idiot he is. Shockingly enough, it worked. That kid (I'm currently ignoring the fact that we're twins and, therefore, the same age) had all the luck.

The stupidly ineffective gun was then aimed at us and the fight began. Still irritated as hell, I ran right passed the heartless, leaving them for my brother and the rest, and started wailing on the douche who needed a serious beating. It was rather pathetic how easily I was smacking him around. The man didn't even bother blocking, just jumped around.

"Watch out!" an unfamiliar voice called out a split second before a black form crashed into me and shoved me away. In the instant that I crashed to the ground some feet away, the rock face behind the man I was fighting blew to pieces. Heavy rubble landed right where I had been standing and where the man who had saved me from being crushed was currently standing.

Large rocks, bordering on being boulders, crashed over his thin frame. A wave of panic washed over me. If he was flattened and died, it would be my fault. I was the one that wasn't paying enough attention and had to be saved. Fortunately, none of them landed directly on him.

"Are you okay?" I asked frantically as I ran to him. He seemed a little unsteady, so I did the best that I could to keep him standing as stably as possible. I wasn't that much help though considering that he must have been a foot and a half taller than me. The black hood of the coat he was wearing had fallen down at some point while he was trying to dodge the rocks.

Long, choppy, red locks fell to just below his shoulders, some being just long enough to drape over them. As said before, he was ridiculously tall and skinny. Hell, he was bordering on being flat out bony. What really caught my attention was his eye. They were the same acid green orbs that had been watching me so intensely back in Traverse Town just before I had fainted. Below those enchanting eyes, were black marks that looked like upside triangles or teardrops.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he responded with a cocky smile. My heart began to flutter uncontrollably at the sound of his voice. It was not very deep, more of a pleasant tenor, but it was full of life and just as arrogant as that smile. More teeth became visible as his grin grew at my gawking and he nudged his head towards the hunter we were supposed to be fighting. "What do you say we go and beat the crap out of that guy?"

I shook my head clear and snapped back to attention. With a nod I turned back to the son of a bitch who was currently… floating? No, he was sitting on something. Whatever the hell it was, it was strong. It flung Tarzan away like he was nothing.

"Roxas!" I didn't turn to my brother but he knew I was watching through my peripheral vision. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said, taking notice of another black figure standing behind my twin. I couldn't make out much of him since I wasn't looking directly at him. Other than the black coat, the only thing I saw was that he had silver hair. "Be careful Sora. We have no idea how large this thing really is."

"Gotcha!" We charged the monster and man cautiously. The man who saved me stuck to my side, watching my back. He fought with strangely shaped, circular weapons that had spike on them. I knew right away that he was also the one who helped me in the battle with Cerberus when he threw one and it was engulfed in flames.

Eventually, the invisible monster became visible. We must have disrupted whatever the hell it was doing to stay invisible while we were blindly attacking it. The thing was a giant chameleon. Being able to see only made the fight a little easier. It was still a pain though since the damn thing shot out two freaky lights from his eyes that exploded or something when it touched us and it would randomly spin around and smack us with its tail.

Finally, we were able to knock Clayton down and hit him separately. The two newcomers were nice enough to take over fighting the heartless while my brother, Tarzan, and I attacked the hunter. Neither of us budged an inch until Sora and I noticed the heartless begin to rear up and fall backwards. We grabbed Tarzan and bolted.

Confused, the hunter turned around and just stood there staring up in horror while the demon fell on him. I winced. That had to hurt. He deserved it, but still. Ouch. By the time the usual crystal heart flew away and the beast dissipated in a wisp of shadows, there was nothing left of the asshole.

"Well," I looked up to the red head as he dismissed his weapons. A gloved hand came up to rub the back of his head in slight disbelief. "That was rather anti-climatic, huh?"

"Yeah." There was something I needed to ask, though. In all honesty, I should have asked it as soon as he showed up, but I was a little too busy trying not to die. The fact that he was hot and ogle worthy had _absolutely nothing_ to do with it. (A/N: keep telling yourself that Roxas. I'm sure _someone_ will believe you.) "Who are you?"

"Oh yeah. The name's Axel." He leaned down, that huge grin back on his face, and looked me in the eyes. My heart stuttered again at the playful light in those vivid, green eyes. "Got it memorized?"

I nodded numbly, my thoughts jumbled something fierce. Damn was this man sexy. A hand adorned with black, fingerless gloves waved in front of my face, breaking me out of some rather, ahem, _unclean_ thoughts that would have surely gotten my ass beaten by mom and sent dad chasing after the Axel.

"You okay?" my brother asked me, eyes wide and childish. I nodded and sighed before looking and the other man.

It was the first good look I had gotten of him. He was tall, though not quite as tall as Axel. The silver hair that I had vaguely noticed earlier was long, ending just below his shoulder blades. His bangs fell in his eyes, obscuring them, but they were so bright that it was hard not to still notice them. The aquamarine orbs reminded me a lot of Sephiroth. Now that I thought of it, everything about him, from his silver hair to his muscular build reminded me of my new uncle. Weird.

"Riku," he said with a small bow of his head. His voice was quiet and confident. It was obvious that he held a fair amount of restraint and could keep his wits about himself. I nodded in return and jumped when a large, hairy hand fell on my shoulder.

Looking up, I saw that it belonged to the gorilla's leader, Kerchak. His dark eyes were filled with gratitude. Before I could say or even think to respond to that look, I found myself flying through the air. Stunned, I landed roughly on a ledge just beyond where the rock face exploded earlier. By the time that I was able to pull myself together and stand up, Sora, Donald and Goofy were thrown too. Tarzan climbed up and Axel and Riku merely jumped.

"Come," the ape-man said, making his way towards a cave. Still out of sorts from the sudden trip, we followed wordlessly. The cave was magnificent. Ledges stuck out from the wall on one side with vines growing in patches, and a waterfall fell majestically on our other side. Random pools of water collected along the floor.

Without giving the area another look, Tarzan continued moving. Up we went, leaping from ledge to ledge and climbing ivy where it was necessary until we made it to the top. We walked through another entrance and were left in awe. A glorious tree stood proudly with a glowing keyhole. Butterflies, drawn to the light, surrounded it. The whole area was bright and peaceful. Nature was dominant there with plants growing contently. The waterfall could still be heard as wonderful background noise.

Tarzan looked at us appraisingly for a moment before turning back to the tree.

"Friends," he said adding some more gorilla to the end of it. A few seconds later, Jane seem to understand what he was trying to say.

"Heart! He's trying to say that our friends are our hearts!" It seemed to us like she pulled that out of her ass, but hey, she knew him better than we did. If she said that he was trying to say 'heart', then who were we to doubt her?

"Heart." Like with all other words that were new to him, he tested it out. "Friends, heart. Clayton lose heart. No friends, no heart."

Sora and Donald must have picked up something from that badly articulated speech. They both looked at each other, their shame evident in their eyes.

"I'm sorry Donald," Sora said, taking the high road and properly apologizing first. "I shouldn't have attacked you like that."

"Me too," the duck said, looking like he was about to cry. "Friends?"

"Friends." Brown spikes swayed as my twin nodded and smiled to our companion. We all let out a laugh as Terk came up and hugged the magician. She rubbed her head against him too while he desperately tried to get away.

"Looks like someone has a sweet spot for you," Jane giggled. Donald looked horrified and renewed his escape attempts with increased vigor.

"No! Daisy would kill me!" My attention, along with Sora, Axel, and Riku's, didn't stay on the flailing duck for long. My keyblades, along with Sora's, summoned themselves like Sora's had in Wonderland. My brother and I nodded to each other, knowing what we had to do.

"I'll take this one," I said, walking up to the tree. I held up Oblivion, my black keyblade, and pointed it at the glowing keyhole. Like in wonderland, a light shot out of the magic weapon and a clicking was heard as something locked.

As much as I wanted to think about what the hell was going on, I didn't have the time to. Once the clicking sound stopped resonating through the air, a thud was heard behind us. I turned and gasped, dismissing my weapons instantly and ran to the collapsed figure.

"Axel!"


	12. Chapter 12

Sadistic-neko: Sorry for taking so long everyone. I recently started school again and was finally able to get a job.

Roxas: (grabs author by the collar of her shirt) Damn it woman! Do you know how anxious I've been know if Axel is going to be okay?!

Sadistic-neko: I know, I know. I'm sorry. Either way, here's the new chap. (turns to readers) I do not own kingdom hearts and hope that y'all enjoy this latest chapter.

"Axel! What's wrong," I screamed, gripping onto the redhead's sleeve. I had no idea why I was so drawn to him and what was making me so desperate to have him okay. It was unnerving but I couldn't do anything about it. Regardless of what my head told me, my heart screamed in pain along with the man who I had only really known for about an hour.

"Damn it," Riku muttered, kneeling beside us. He gently moved me aside to look over his companion's injuries. "A couple of his ribs are broken. One may have grazed a lung. Shit."

Sora came up to me and put a hand on my shoulder to try and comfort me. I ignored the gesture and simply gripped the gloved hand I held tighter. Damn it, it was all my fault. Needing some way to save him, I turned frantically to Donald.

"Can you help him?" I asked sounding more like I was begging. He looked sorrowful as he slowly shook his head no.

"If it's so bad that his lungs are hurt, I can't do anything. I'm not that skilled in healing magic. Someone like Aeris who specializes in healing would have to do it." I hung my head. Aeris was all the way in Travers Town. Axel would never survive the trip in the gummi ship with an injured lung.

"Where is this Aeris?" Riku asked, gently moving the redhead.

"Traverse Town," my brother said, sensing that I wasn't in any condition emotionally to answer myself. The man nodded and turned to look at me.

"I can get him to Traverse Town in time to save him, but I will need your help." I could feel my eyes widen. Could he really? I nodded. There was no way that I trusted my voice enough to answer. "You need to hold on to his hand until we get help. The bond you two share should give him enough energy to keep him alive until then." I nodded again and tightened the hold I had on the large hand I hadn't yet let go of. The grip was so tight that it was probably cutting off the circulation. "Good. Now help me get him on my back."

Sora and I both lifted the man up as carefully as we could, fighting the urge to flinch every time he groaned in pain. I was so thankful that he had passed out. The pain must have been unbearable.

Finally, the redhead was safely on his companion's back. The large man stood slowly, making sure no to jar his charge. To keep hold of Axel's hand, I had to stand slightly ahead of Riku and reach up to the aquamarine eyed man's shoulder, which was just above of the top of my head.

"You guys ready?" he asked, looking between my brother and me. We nodded. Without further ado, he lifted the hand that I wasn't blocking and held his palm out. Half a second later a black, shadowy portal appeared. Donald, Goofy, Sora and I all gaped in surprise. What the hell was that? Riku must have known what we were thinking. "This is a portal of darkness. I can use it to take me anywhere I need to go in an instant so long as I know where it is. We can use this to get Axel to the healer."

"Thank god," I muttered relieved under my breath. Though I was sure that both he and my brother heard me, neither said anything about it. I was grateful for that. My emotions were going haywire and I needed time to sort through them all before I was questioned. "That's a very useful skill."

"It is," the man agreed. There was a definite 'but' hanging in the air. "Unfortunately, I will be pushing my ability to travel like this with the three of you. It would be impossible to take Axel, Sora, you, and your friends."

"What?!" Donald squawked loudly. I inwardly groaned. Didn't he realize that Axel was dying? We didn't have enough time for this. "You can't leave us! We need to stay with the keybearers! The king gave us that mission!"

"Mission or no, that doesn't change the fact that I am incapable of carrying this many people with me." Riku's voice was chilling as he spoke. "Roxas needs to go with me to keep Axel stable until he can be treated and I will be damned if I leave Sora behind too. The two need each other and god knows what can happen while both Axel and I are unable to watch over him. So I suggest you get your asses on your ship and meet us at Traverse Town if you're so damn set on following your king's orders."

With that scathing speech over, he quickly turned on his heel pulling me with him and used his free hand to grab Sora. His quick steps were sharp and determined. He only paused when we just before we stepped through the portal he had created.

"Roxas, stay at least a step ahead of me. We are going to appear right in the middle of the accessory shop. If one of the members of your family sees me before you, they might attack me thinking that I am an enemy." I nodded to show my understanding. The last thing the wounded redhead needed was the person he was riding on to be injured too or even killed depending on who was at the shop at the time. Death would be pretty much inevitable if it were grandma, mom, dad, or Sephiroth. "Also, whatever you two do, do not let go of me. If you do, you can be lost in the darkness and I don't know whether we would be able to find you."

"Okay," we both responded and stepped through the swirling mass of shadows.

The blackness wrapped around us, both pushing us forward and trying to pull us from the man leading us. He was steady as though he couldn't feel the persistent tugging, completely at ease with where he was. It was like he was a part of the shadows themselves, like it was where he was meant to be. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I could make out a pinprick of light ahead of us.

Breaking through the void and coming into the middle of the shop was like finally making it to the water's surface while on the verge of drowning. The air was suddenly lighter in both senses of the word and I felt like I could breathe again. There wasn't enough time to revel in this feeling though. Already I could see the glint of Cerberus being drawn and a flash of silver as Sephiroth moved to strike down the sudden intruder.

"Don't attack!" I gasped out, catching their attention. They froze, weapons still poised to attack.

"Roxas?" grandma asked, shocked as all hell to see me. I nodded, taking a second to breathe. That second was cut short as I was pulled by the hand I still had a death grip on as the man behind me collapsed to his knees.

"Get Aeris!" I screamed/ordered as I turned to look the men over. Riku was practically on all fours, panting in exhaustion. He had pulled the hood of his jacket up at some point, hiding his face and hair. I didn't have time to question this.

With gentle movements, I moved Axel off of the other man's broad back and onto the floor. He was still in obvious pain and I felt awful for moving him and jarring his injuries even if only a little, but Riku didn't look like he would be able to hold the other up for much longer.

The silver haired man let out a breathy sigh of gratitude and Sora helped him ease himself into lying down. If I hadn't been so worried about Axel, then I probably would have raised a brow at the way that my twin rested the man's head in his lap. As it was, though, my attention was primarily focused on the man who saved me.

"Wha' the 'ell is goin' on 'ere?" I heard asked and looked up to see gramps kneel down beside me. He must have seen how on edge I was because he moved cautiously as though I were a wild animal. "Wha 'appened ta this poor bastard?"

"We were fighting with a heartless and someone who was being taken over by the darkness. A rock wall blew up and he moved me out of the way and got hurt. This other guy got us here so that Aeris might be able to save him." I sounded dead as I spoke. A large hand came down on my shoulder and gave me a gentle pat. My turned back to the redhead, though, my guilt over getting him hurt making me not really wanting to be comforted.

"Dun worry, kid. If anyone c'n save 'im, it's Aeris." I couldn't bear to look at my savior in such a state anymore, so I lifted my eyes again to start looking around. The shop looked cleaner than the last time I had been there. It actually looked like they were in the process of rearranging the merchandise. All of the larger furniture was shoved against the wall and some boxes could be seen poking out behind the counter.

Neither Sephiroth nor Vincent could be seen. I could only guess that one was getting the healer and the other was getting my parents. A war waged in my head about whether I was ready to seen the men who had raised me. One part of me didn't want them to see the pain I had caused to another because I was so stupidly careless. Another part of me, the part that was the child I really should have been, yearned for them to just show up and comfort me. More than anything, I felt like I needed mom to hold me and tell that everything would be alright while dad watched over us with his ever alert and powerful eyes.

My suspicion was confirmed as the door burst open allowing Aeris in first. She was quickly followed by my parents, uncles, and grandma. The pink clad woman ran right to me, a green glow already covering her hands to inspect Axel's injuries.

"Roxas," she said, looking me in the eye. I began to shake because of how serious yet patient she seemed. "I need you to let go of him so I can treat him."

My eyes went wide as I began to desperately shake my head no. The trembling became worse too. I couldn't let go of him. Riku said that touching me was giving him enough energy to stay stable. Would he be okay if I separated from him?

"It's okay." Aeris' gentle voice did little to console me and ease my terror. With a small, only partially strained smile, she laid a hand over mine. "It's okay. My magic should keep him going until his wounds are healed."

"Really?" I asked, tightening my hold on Axel's hand one more time. She gave one nod and gently pulled my hand away. Mom had to hold me back when the fire controller let out a ragged cough. Blood splattered across his chest ominously.

"Zack, please move this man to the guest room." The former soldier gave a nod and delicately picked up the patient. I began to struggle so much seeing him taken away that dad had to help mom hold me down. A whining keen escaped me as the door closed, keeping from seeing the redhead.

"Roxas!" mom yelled, trying to get my attention. "Roxas! Stop!"

I went limp, lightly sobbing and whining. Mom's calloused hands rubbed up and down my back soothingly while dad held us both. We stayed like this for a while, mom and the others all trying to calm me down and figure out what exactly was upsetting me so much.

"He'll be like that until he sees that Axel is fine," a deep, still unfamiliar rang out. Everyone turned their gaze to the stranger borrowing Sora's lap. Before anyone could question who he was or what he was talking about, he continued to speak. "Every person's heart is connected to another's. They are meant for each other, soul mates basically. Axel is his. Seeing him injured like that is highly traumatizing. He's going to continue to be afraid for him until he sees that he will be okay."

"Who are you?" dad growled out fiercely. Sephiroth tensed too, ready to attack the man at any moment. The man, ignoring the hostility sat up as well as he could while still so tired and pulled his hood off again.

"My name is Riku."

In the blink of an eye, both dad and Sephiroth were on him, swords at his throat. All of the others from their world, including Yuffie who had only just entered, pulled out their weapons. Grandma looked like he was seconds away from turning into one of his demons. Mom was the only one who seemed as confused as Sora, Riku, and I were.

"What the hell is a remnant doing here?" I had never heard dad sound so terrifying.


	13. Chapter 13

**Sadistic-neko: Howdy everyone. Sorry that it's taken me so long to update. School and work have been a bitch as per usual. Anyway, I got quite a few questions about remnants after the last chapter so I figured that I better explain them. Remnants are incomplete beings that have Jenova cells. Like Sephiroth, they are freaking obsessed with the creepy alien thingy and call her "mother". By absorbing Jenova's cell, they become whole and become a revived Sephiroth. For further information, I refer you to the movie, Advent Children, where they are the antagonists. In my opinion, they are adorable even if they are evil. Kadaj in particular. Now, Remember dearies, I do not own Kingdom Hearts or the Final Fantasy game series. I hope y'all enjoy my latest chapter.**

"Remnant?" Riku asked. He didn't move a muscle knowing that the slightest twitch could potentially be enough to cause one my relatives to attack. His brow was furrowed in confusion. While dad and the others growled again at the newcomer, mom discretely pulled Sora where we were. If the AVALANCE members and Sephiroth did attack, there was a chance that my brother could be injured too. Most of their weapons were ridiculously powerful after all.

"Do not play coy!" Sephiroth spat, his teeth clenched so tightly that I was amazed that they didn't break. He lifted Masamune, hand gripping it so hard that his knuckles were white. "We can sense the Jenova cells within you. Combined with the silver hair and your eyes, there is nothing else you could be."

There was a moment of silence as the words sank in. The man being threatened still seemed to have no idea of what was going on. Sora, mom, and I were still pretty confused too. I remembered that Jenova was the name of the being that Sephiroth used to think was his mother and who drove him insane before. She was a calamity that struck their world and sought to end it along with all others.

What did that have to do with Riku, though? And what was a remnant anyways? Why would they be able to sense Jenova cells coming from him?

I nearly jumped in surprise as my twin grabbed onto my jacket. He was shaking almost as bad as I was from Axel being hurt and taken away. I looked into his eyes and placed one of my hands over his. Though it was really only half-hearted since I was still distraught from my own plight, I gave it comforting squeeze.

At last, realization dawned in Riku's aquamarine eyes. He cursed lightly under his breath before slumping against the wall behind him. With a tired sigh that made me think that he was gathering every bit of patience he held, he looked up to his aggressors.

"Was this 'Jenova' a great source of darkness in your world?" he finally asked. The others merely nodded, glares still not leaving. With another sigh, he let his head fall against the wall he leaned on. "I can assure you that I not a remnant. I am actually a demon created as a manifestation of the cumulated purest, strongest darkness in existence. The stronger the darkness is, the more influence it has on my abilities and appearance. The reason that I resemble whatever the hell you think I am and why you can sense that being from me is probably because its darkness was strong enough to dominate over the others when I came to be."

"Why should we trust you?" dad asked, positioning himself between the man and us. Sora leaned over me so he could still see Riku. A small whine escaped him as he watched dad take another step towards the silver haired man until he was looming menacingly over him.

"Two reasons." Riku looked dad straight in the eyes, both determined and defiant. "The first, and most pressing, is that I am the only thing keeping Sora's heart balanced. He is one of very few beings that have a heart that consists of only light. Unlike the others, though, his heart is not being used to keep the worlds in the proper order. My heart, which is made of darkness, is connected to his keeping us alive. It was meant to be from the moment that the darkness began to form me. Without him, I would die, and the same would happen to him if I was gone. Since that is the case, that makes the two of us much like Axel and Roxas. Soul mates."

Everyone in the room was in shock. Well, Sora seemed fine other than being worried. I could only guess that he felt something like what was going on with me. There was just some undeniable bond between us and our apparent mates. It certainly made everything make sense.

Dad looked to grandma and they had some kind of silent conversation. After a second, the red clad man nodded and approached Riku. Once by the man, he turned into Chaos. I was mildly surprised the he didn't seem all too shocked by the former Turk's sudden transformation. Maybe he could feel that Vincent shared his body with demons or something.

There was a moment of tense silence as the powerful demon looked the silver haired man over. Amber eyes locked with aquamarine and looked deep into them, searching his very soul. At last, the winged being stood from kneeling and looked to the others.

"What he says is true. His heart and Sora's are connected." There was another pause as he thought over how to word his next sentence. "Though I can sense Jenova's cells within him, I cannot sense any connection to that accursed being. Unlike the remnants, he is a complete being."

Sephiroth, dad, and the other members of AVALANCE still looked unsure, but they trusted Chaos, so their weapons were lowered. As soon as the threat of the dark demon being sliced into mincemeat was gone, my brother rushed to his side and quickly checked him over. The paler of the two visibly relaxed and damn near slumped into the brunette once they were together again.

"So you said that your name was Riku?" mom began, watching the two carefully. His grey eyes were observant, but I could tell that he was reserving judgment until he knew more. The addressed man nodded. "You said that there were two reasons that we should trust you. So far you've only mentioned one. Would you care to enlighten us as to the second?"

"Of course." He straightened up again and looked between my parents. Dad was still staring at him through suspicious eyes, though I think that his reasons had changed now that he knew that Riku was not a remnant. A pale arm unconsciously wrapped around my twin's shoulders, reassuring him that he was fine. "I was the one who brought you two to Destiny Islands and led you to Sora and Roxas."

"What?!" everyone exclaimed in shock. The demon sighed and pulled Sora closer to his chest, rubbing soothing circles in his back.

"Leon and Cloud were supposed to end up here when your world was taken over by the heartless. The boys' mother had just died a short while before that and they needed new guardians. I heard that Leon was a good man that I could trust to take care of them and that Cloud was always with him. I pulled those two away during their trip through the darkness and sent them to the islands. It was a blessing that they did take the twins in and that they were everything that I was told and more. I've been watching them for years and protecting them whenever necessary and have seen them grow well under your care."

For the umpteenth time, silence reigned supreme. All of the adults were so shocked that they didn't even notice Aeris and Zack come back into the room. From what I could tell, they had both heard everything and Aeris even wore a knowing look.

"The one who told you about Leon and Cloud was Lea, wasn't it?"

Sora and I stared confused as the others went wide eyed and looked between the healer and demon. Clearly they knew whoever the hell this 'Lea' person was.

"Lea?" Yuffie said, in shock. "But that's impossible. He was one of the first people to lose their hearts to the darkness along with his friend Isa and the others."

"I know, but that doesn't change the fact that this young man brought him in and I just finished treated his injuries." The pink clad woman's green eyes were more serious than I had ever seen them as she looked to Riku. "So would you explain?"

"He is not Lea. At least, not anymore." The man looked like he was ready to pass out from exhaustion. "When someone with a strong heart becomes a heartless, something called a nobody is also created from the husk that is left. Those with the strongest hearts are able to retain their memories and consciousness. These nobodies are the rarest. As far as I know, there are only thirteen. Including Roxas here."

"I'm a 'nobody'?" I asked, my brow furrowed in confusion. The demon nodded. "How is that possible, though? I haven't lost my heart to the darkness. At least, I don't think I have."

"There are two ways that a nobody is created." His voice was getting softer by the second and his words were starting to slur together. It was obvious that he was on the cusp of passing out. "The first is how I just mentioned. It is the most common method. The second, though, is how you became a nobody. You see, a nobody does not _literally_ lose their heart when their somebody becomes a heartless. They lose their metaphorical heart, and with it, their ability to feel emotions and the like. The only way that has been found so far for these emotions to return, is for them to find the person their heart is bonded to. Once they find this person, they are capable of feeling love even more strongly than they would have when they were a somebody because of the lack of emotions they had been suffering through. The feelings have to be extremely powerful to overcome their demon nature. When Axel first saw you, it was only moments before the accident that took your birth mother's life. The organization that he works for, which holds the other sentient nobodies, caught wind of my presence and sent him to investigate. I had been watching the two of you since you were born, and told him so. As soon as he caught sight of you through the car window, I knew that you two were mates and encouraged him to stay at least long enough to see where you lived so that he could also watch over you until the time was right for you to meet. Unfortunately, at that moment, your mother lost control of the car. I was only able to grab Sora and save him. Axel had not yet mastered the ability of traveling through the dark portals, so he couldn't get to you to save you. By the time we were able to get you out of the car, it was obvious that the injuries you had sustained were fatal. Not being able to bear losing you so soon after finding you, Axel did what only a nobody mate could do and gave you his heart, binding the two of you and turning you into a demon. You share a heart now, so the already strong bond you share is amplified and the power you hold as a nobody is considerably stronger since you still possess emotions and the ability to use the power of light."

I watched as he finally couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. The fight with the heartless in the Deep Jungle and the strain from transporting so many people through the darkness took its toll and he passed out.

"Well, that explains a lot," Aeris said as she knelt down to look the demon over. The green light from her hands cast a glow over his face that made him look even worse.

"Will he be okay?" Sora asked, his eyes wide with concern.

"Yes. From what I can tell, he just needs a little rest." She looked to me, answer my question as I was taking the breath I would need to ask it. "Axel will be fine too. I have realigned his broken ribs and closed the worst of his wounds. He should be good as new in another day or so."

I slumped against mom, letting out a relieved sigh. Thank goodness. I wasn't sure what I would have done if the redhead wouldn't have been fine. Mom patted me on the shoulder and then stood.

"Well boys," he began. "I think that it's time that we move Riku into the guest room and then head out to get some rest ourselves."

"But…," Sora and I said, forgetting who we were talking to and trying to argue. We really didn't want to leave the men and would have been willing to sleep on the floor if we had to. It would have been nothing so long as we could stay near them.

"Boys." We shut up seeing that glare. It was the most terrifying 'mom glare' that the brunette had in his arsenal, and had made us want to shit ourselves on multiple occasions. Even dad ran for the hills when it was directed his way. "These two need their rest. I can understand that you are worried about them, but they won't get better any faster with you hovering over them. I'm sure the last thing they want is for you to worry. Come home with Cloud and me, sleep for the night, and check on them in the morning. If they aren't awake by then, I'm sure that we can think of something that you two can do to occupy yourselves. Now come on."

"Yes sir." We hung our heads, got up and followed sullenly. Both of our eyes were fixed on the door to the back, home section of the store, wishing that we could be with our soul mates, but knowing better than to go against mom. Hopefully they would be better tomorrow.


	14. Chapter 14

Sadistic-neko: Hi everyone! Sorry it took me so long to get this up. Life got in the way, what with job hunting and such. Once that was all over, my friend got me to start watching Kyo Kara Maoh and that sucked me in and refused to spit me out for a couple of days. Well, I'm sure that you guys want me to just shut up so you can start reading, so I'll just go and poke Axel and Riku with a stick to see if I can get them to wake up while you guys get to it. Oh yeah, and I do not own Kingdom Hearts and hope that you all enjoy my latest chapter.

I cursed the sun as I curled further into the warm body that was also trying to curl into me. That blasted ball of burning gas' bright rays searing my retinas through my tightly clenched eyelids. My head hurt, temples throbbing, and my brain was three pounds of pin cushioned mush. All in all, I felt like crap and did not want to get up.

The last time I could think that I woke up feeling so bad and had not been sick was that time I had a test on a book we were reading in school and had completely forgotten about it until the night before. I had been up almost the whole night reading the book and got about an hour and half of sleep at the most that just made everything worse instead of helping. Every page of that damn book was read, though, and I got a high B on that awful test. Admittedly, I only vaguely remembered taking that test, but still.

At last, blissful darkness came over the room. I sighed in relief, and snuggled into my as I felt the bed dip behind me under someone's weigh. A second later, a gentle hand was running through my hair, easing away my headache a little. The bed dipped quite a bit more as another person sat down, their figure looming over me to reach the person lying beside me.

"Roxas?" a voice called out softly to me. I cracked an eye open and looked above me to see mom's worried face. With a groan, I rolled over, gripped onto his pants, and nuzzled into his thigh. Another sighed passed my lips as the hand that had been carding through my hair moved to soothingly rub my back. "How are you feeling?" I groaned. "Okay, then. You and Sora rest as much as you need."

He went to get up and leave. I tightened my grip on his pants and whined. He stopped.

"Do you want Cloud and me to stay?" I nodded. There was a moment where mom carefully shifted me so he could properly get up on the bed and make himself comfortable. I could feel dad do the same as gathered Sora up to comfort him.

I know that some of you might find this unusual. I mean, both my brother and I were sixteen years old with what others thought were emotionally retarded parents, and we were basically clinging to them like we were five year olds. The fact is, though, we were all very emotionally vulnerable despite the appearance that we put out to the world. Sora and I were a complete mess when mom and dad first found us after the trauma of losing our biological mother and being all alone. Mom and dad had lost too much not to take whatever they cared about, hold it tightly, and not let go even on pain of death. It was not unusual for us all to have these giant cuddle fests whenever something happed that thoroughly rattled one of us.

Like every time that such an event happed, which was not very often, mom and dad were leaned against the wall and each other with my twin or me almost in their lap. We all simply lay there for a while drawing comfort from each other's presence. It wasn't long before exhaustion caught up to me and I was asleep once again, knowing that mom wasn't going to leave while I rested.

When I opened my eyes a few hours later, I felt much better. Having mom and dad with me was just what I needed to finally put my mind at ease enough to get some actual rest. It was still nowhere near a full night of sleep, but I was functional now.

I sat up, stretching and yawning slightly. Once I was done, I turned to mom and gave him a small smile. He merely nodded in understanding and helped dad move Sora who, though as awake as I was, chose to remain sprawled out over the blonde. Once they were standing, they immediately made their way to the door. The sound of their footsteps went towards the room they pointed out to us the previous night as their own.

Sora and I almost robotically dressed and made our way to the kitchen. Mom and dad were already there waiting for us. We all sat down, and, finally, the silence was broken.

"Can we go see Riku and Axel?" my brother asked, looking pleadingly at our parents with big, worried eyes.

"As soon as we get some food in you," mom replied, standing to pull out some cereal, milk and juice, while dad got the bowls, spoons, and cups.

Breakfast was a quiet affair. Neither Sora nor I was in the mood to talk, minds focused on the two demons who we owed our lives to. Mom and dad respected that and remained silent until we finished and made our way to the accessory shop.

"Good morning," Aeris said as we walked through the door. He smile was as bright as ever, which was a major relief. That smile meant that nothing had happened during the night like my twin and I were terrified would.

"How are they?" I asked, my voice cracking in worry.

"They're fine. Neither one has woken up yet, Riku has regained his color, and Axel hasn't shown any sign that he is in pain. In fact, his ribs are healing faster than I thought they would. They should both be up and about no later than this afternoon." We both sighed in a mix of relief and disappointment. We had really wanted to see them awake. "You can go in and see them if you want."

Without wasting a second, we both quickly made our way to the door of the guest room, careful not to make too much noise. As much as we wanted to see them, we didn't want to mess up their healing by disturbing their rest either. Our eyes were instantly glued to the large bed in the middle of the room.

Both of the men were lying on it, wrapped up in separate blankets. Before I knew it, I was kneeling next to Axel, and Sora was by Riku. With a shaking hand, I reached up to touch the redhead's shoulder, as if to see if he was really there. As if sensing me, he sighed softly. His breathing sounded so much better than it had the night before. I deflated a bit, knowing at last that the demon would be okay.

There was a moment where all I could do was sit there, my forehead against the edge of the mattress, listening to Axel breathe. When I finally felt up to moving again, I saw my brother across from me, mimicking my position, though his head was lying on the bed beside Riku's, watching him. Feeling his pain, I quietly stood up and kneeled beside him.

"Are you okay Sora?" I asked, my hand placed comfortingly on his shoulder. He lethargically looked up to me. After a second, he nodded and turned back to the silver haired man.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. It's just that I can't believe how strongly I feel about him, ya know? I mean, we just met them yesterday." I nodded, my eyes falling back to Axel unconsciously. "I know nothing about him, but I can't help but feel that I've known him my whole life. Watching him, I wonder if this is how he's felt our whole lives, always guarding us from the shadows, knowing there was only so much he could do to protect us."

I tried not to think of it. The men surely felt far stronger for us than we did for them so far. Sure, we were, literally, made for each other, but I knew about as much about him as I did that lady dad grew up with. Hell, I couldn't even remember her name! He, on the other hand, had to know everything there was to know about me. If what Riku said was true, he had been watching over me since I was a toddler for heaven's sake! That had to have strengthened the bond I felt with him already.

"Well, Sora," I said, standing up. "We aren't doing them any good just sitting here, working ourselves into a panic. Why don't we see if there's anything mom or the others need us to do until they wake up?"

"Sure." We gave one last longing, hopeful look to our soul mates and made our way into the shop.

Everyone was already waiting for us, occupying the seats or counter and eyes glued to the door we exited. Mom and dad were curled up on the love seat, Aeris sitting on the armrest next to dad. Zack was in the chair by the fireplace, Sephiroth leaned against the wall by him. Gramps was in his usual place behind the counter with grandma, and Yuffie was sitting on the counter a fair distance from the captain.

"How do they look?" mom asked as Sora and I hopped up on one of the sturdy looking display cases.

"As well as can be, I guess. A lot better than last night at least." I brought one foot up to rest on the display case and hugged my knee to my chest. "So, have you guys decided on what you'll have us do today for that distraction you mentioned yesterday?"

"Of course." Mom leaned forward, taking his classic 'serious' posture, elbows leaned on his knees with his hands folded in front of his face. "First things first, though. Do you remember that glowing keyhole we found in Wonderland?"

"Yeah," Sora replied. I had never seen him so focused. "We found another one in the last world we were in. Roxas used one of his Keyblades on it."

The adults briefly glanced to me and I nodded in confirmation, my gaze never left my parents. They were silent for a moment, taking in what my brother had said and deciding on how they would proceed.

"Well, everyone here was curious about it, so we have been doing research on it since your father and I returned. From what we have gathered, those keyholes lead to the heart of the world. Every world has one, even this world. When the heartless invade a world, then they start looking for this keyhole and, once they find it, pour into it until the world can no longer handle it and is destroyed."

"So, the heartless found the keyhole for the island, and that's why it was destroyed and we were sent here?" Dad nodded and mom took a second to gather his thoughts before continuing.

"There is a way to stop, this. If the keyhole is 'locked', then the heartless cannot enter it. Your Keyblades are the only thing capable of doing this."

Oh, that made a lot of sense. It certainly explained the clicking sound we heard both times we had encountered the keyholes.

"So, that time the Keyblade went all wacky and light shot out of it in Wonderland, it was locking the keyhole?" Sora asked. There was yet another nod. "So that means that we saved Wonderland?"

"From destruction, yes, but locking to keyhole does not stop the heartless from invading and trying to steal people's hearts." Mom shook his head sadly. "They may stop for a short time, but they will be back."

"Oh." Well that was disappointing. I guess it was too much to hope for a surefire way of stopping to primitive demons and whatever was controlling them. Nothing was that easy in real life.

Mom stood and kneeled in front of us, placing a reassuring hand on our knees. His determined grey eyes meet with both of our blue ones, offering support and comfort.

"Even if it does not completely stop the heartless, it will save many lives and there will be far fewer people like our family who have lost their homes." The hands he placed on us squeezed lightly. "I know it's asking a lot of you two, but please find these keyholes. You guys are the only ones who can."

The intense moment was broken by the loud chiming of a large bell. It was so loud that it left my head ringing and shook the ground beneath us.

"W-what was that?" I asked when I could see straight. The others, apparently used to whatever the hell that was, merely adjusted themselves in their seats like nothing had happened.

"Tha' was jus tha bell above tha Gizmo Shop in secon' district," Cid said, fixing one the display cases. "It doen' ring tha offen, bu' it's hella loud."

"You can say that again." I grumbled lightly under my breath, rubbing my temples a little to see if the ringing would go away. "Anyway, is there anything you wanted Sora and me to do?"

"Sure." The pilot leaned down to grab something beneath the counter. "A customer a mine asked meh to fix this 'ere book fer 'im. S'not mah specialty, but I figgered I got did a good 'nough job on it. Anyway, why dun ya two deliver it fer meh? It's fer the old man who lives behind tha door with the fire symbol in it in third district."

"Okay." I stood and made to leave through the door only to be stopped by Sora exclaiming.

"Oh yeah." He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like some kind of gummi block. It wasn't the one that Donald and Goofy had found earlier, so I had no idea where the hell he had gotten. Knowing him, he got distracted some time while we were traveling and picked it up because it was colorful or something. "This came out of the keyhole in that last world we were in. Do any of you guys know what it is?"

"Give it 'ere." Gramps' calloused hand snatched the gummi from im quickly and he held it up a little to get a better look at it. "Well, wha d'ya know. Y'all found yerselves a warp gummi."

"A what?" my brother and I asked in perfect synchrony, our blue eyes blinking slowly in confusion. He stared right back at us blankly.

"Ya mean ta tell meh tha yer runnin around ta other worlds in a gummi ship and ya dun even know wha a warp gummi is?" We nodded. The man let out an exasperated sigh and went back to his spot behind the counter. "Tha's it, as soon as ya get back from seein the loony wizard, I'ma gonna give ya a crash course in gummi ships. Ah also own a garage where I fix up and customize gummi ships, so ah'll install this fer ya once the other two get back with yer ship. If ya find anymore gummis, bring em 'ere and ah'll hook ya up. Meet up with meh at the small 'ouse in Third district once yer done."

Finally, we made our way out and headed out to Third district. We had unlocked the door that went straight there from First District before we left last time, so it didn't take very long for us to find the door that gramps mentioned earlier.

"Er," Sora said, looking the door over. "How are we supposed to open it?"

That was a very good question. There didn't seem to be a handle anywhere, nor were there any gaps we could fit our fingers through to pull it. Pushing it did absolutely nothing. As a stroke of genius, we tried to point our Keyblades at it like with all of the other locks we had used them to get through. All three Kingdom Key (Sora's single Keyblade), Oblivion (my black one), and Oathkeeper (my white one) got no reaction. "Oh, come on!"

While Sora huffed and grumbled, I looked the door over again. Surely gramps wouldn't have sent us if there was no damn way to get through. That would have just irritated us and making to customer wait while we had to go back and forth trying to get through the damn door wasn't good for custom. My eyes stilled on the fire symbol in the middle of the door and it hit me.

"We're idiots," I said, pulling my brother back to a safe distance. Just because I was fireproof now didn't mean that he was, after all. Mom would kill me if I burned him. "We need to cast a fire spell on it."

Without further ado, I did just that. Sure enough, the thing swung open with a mocking creak. The inside wasn't a house like we were expecting. It was actually a dark cavern with a small island in the middle surrounded by water that looked deep enough for us to swim in. I assumed that the wizard we were supposed to deliver the book to, lived in the house situated on the island.

Looking at the house, which was rather oddly shaped with a roof that looked like a witch's hat, another problem quickly presented itself. The island was raised to high out of the water for us to climb up if we swam to it. The only way that was visible for us to possibly make it was to hop across some large, flat stones that drifted about. It would take some careful timing, but they looked close enough to each other that we could make it if we were patient.

We spent the next twenty minutes slowly advancing towards the house. There were a few mishaps mainly involving Sora jumping at the wrong time. Each time he would mess up, he would have to swim all the way back to the beginning since there wasn't a good enough hand hold on the rocks to pull himself. I will admit I fell once when I tripped because my foot got caught on the edge of the stone I was trying hop on. It wasn't that big of a deal, though. Having grown up on the islands, we were both strong swimmers and didn't mind getting a little wet.

At last, both Sora and I had our feet firmly planted on the small piece of land. We gave each other a pat on the back and turned to the front door. It was boarded up. Seeing no way to get in, we started to make our way around it to see if there was perhaps a back door. What we found was a hole in the wall with a cloth partially covering it. We went through it only to find that the whole place was empty. There wasn't even a single piece of furniture.

"Okay." Sora looked to me, just as confused as I was. He sat down on the raised platform on the middle of the room. "Do you think that gramps told us the wrong place?"

"I don't know. This place looks like it's been abandoned for a while now." I looked around again, seeing just how dilapidated the place was. "I mean, there're holes everywhere and the cobwebs are probably the only thing holding it up."

"What should we do then?" I shrugged.

"Go back to the accessory shop and tell gramps there wasn't anyone here?" My brother nodded and I helped him up. We took one last look around to see if there was anything missed and turned to leave. A puff of smoke stopped us.

For a second, it filled the room, blinding us and making us cough. Once it finally cleared, we could see and old man standing right in front of us where the smoke had come from. I guessed that he was the source.

The man had white hair and a long beard that almost trailed on the floor. He was garbed in a blue dress like robe and had a matching pointy hat atop his head. Slipper of the same shade of blue adorned his feet.

"Why hello, boys," he said, putting his bag down and cleaning his glasses with his beard. "I apologize for leaving you waiting. You're here earlier than I was expecting."

"You knew we were coming?" Sora asked, tilting his head to the side a little, probably wondering who the old man was and why he was using his beard of all things to clean his glasses.

"Why of course!" The man's chuckle rang through the room as he moved his bag to the center and opened it up. "I'm the wizard Merlin! Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll have this room put back in order and we can get down to business."

We watched wide eyed and amazed as Merlin began to flick his wand like a conductor's baton and tiny pieces of furniture and books floated out of his bag. As they floated around the room, they grew in size until they found their proper place. The once empty house was now quite crowded, overflowing with books and other such objects.

"Now, I saw that the two of you were coming, but not why." The wizard sat at a table shooing away a sugar container that was trying to fill his cup with obscene amounts of the sweet granules.

"Oh," I said, reaching into my back to pull out the book gramps had given us earlier. Luckily, it hadn't gotten wet while we made our way to house. "Our gramps, Cid Highwind, said that you gave him this book to fix and asked that we give it back to you."

"Why thank you." He waved his hand and floated the book away to place it on a well lit display shelf. "It's such a fascinating book. It found me during my travels. I have never seen anything like it, a book that has a whole other world inside of it. I sent it to Cid because it was in such poor condition. Unfortunately, it seems that there are still pages missing. They've probably been scattered across the worlds."

"We can see if we can find any while we go through the worlds if you want," Sora offered, being his usual, overly friendly self.

"Why thank you my boy. I'm it inhabitants would be very grateful. You're welcomed to come see the book any time you would like, and if you ever need help with your magic, be sure to come see me."

"Thank you," I said, nodding my head respectfully. "We'll be sure to do that."


	15. Chapter 15

**Sadistic-neko: Hi everyone! **

**Axel: (jumps in surprise) Holy shit you're still alive.**

**Sadistic-neko: (rubs back of neck sheepishly) Yeah, I am. Sorry that it took so long to update. I had to replace my computer yet again since windows seven had somehow managed to get corrupted. I couldn't move my mouse pointer, and there's only so much that you can do without being able to click on anything. It took me a while to be able to afford another one since I also had to replace my car, and once I could, I was so busy with work and school that I sort of lost my desire to write. Tonight I just had to do something and it occurred to me that I hadn't typed anything in forever. Once I started, though, I couldn't stop. In fact, I just wrote all of this in the last four hours.**

**Axel: Do I at least get to do something in this chapter or am I still passed out?**

**Sadistic-neko: (gives sadistic grin) You know that I don't want to spoil the surprise for anyone. You'll just have to wait and see.**

**Axel: Damn it. Do you not like me or something? I mean, it took you eleven chapters for you to put me in, and then I've spent the last three unconscious. **

**Sadistic-neko: Dude, I almost cried when you died in KH2 and had a total spazz attack when you came back as Lea in KH3D. It's the damn story beating at my kull that doesn't like you, not me. (shrugs) Anyway, I'm sure that the readers just want me to shut the hell up and get on with the story, so (turns to readers) I do not own Kingdom Hearts, and I hope that you enjoy my newest, and long overdue chapter.**

Sora and I made our way back to Third District. We couldn't help but think about how strange the man we had just met was. Were all Wizards like that? We would have to ask Cid or someone when we met up with them again.

At last, we came to the small house where we were to meet up with the rest of our family. The door was unlocked, so we got in easy enough. The inside lived up to its name. Actually, calling it a house was one hell of a stretch. It was more a room.

The walls were covered on some ridiculously bright wallpaper that was adorned with wavy stripes of alternating blue and white. To the side was a bed that was dressed in plain white linins, and in another corner was a pile of boxes. They were doing a rather poor job of hiding a large section of missing wallpaper. The only other furniture in the room was an end table that had a chest of it and a shelf located high the wall not far from the table.

"I guess we're early," Sora said as it was obvious no one else was there yet. "What should we do? Wait for them?"

I thought about it for a moment. It wasn't really an appealing thought, though. I just knew that if I allowed myself to sit still, I would start worrying about Axel again. Sora would be worrying about Riku too.

"Maybe we should do some exploring instead," I said, already getting a little twitchy. "I mean, we didn't really get a chance to check out much of Second District the last time we were here. Mom, dad, and grandma mainly just train us here in Third District."

"That's a good idea!" Sora jumped up, eyes alight with curiosity. He then grabbed my hand, threw the door open, and began dragging me to the nearby door to the Second District. "We can just come back in a little while and see if others are here yet!"

The door we went through led into an alley. Building that I thought were shops rose above us on either side. The alley then opened up into a large central area with benches scattered about against the walls. There were two levels to the area. A flight of stairs to our left led to the higher portion where the door to First District was along with the entrances to the shops. To our right, rising above everything else, was a large, church looking building. Gramps had called it the Gizmo shop.

"Hey, isn't that where gramps said the bell that rang earlier was?" Sora asked, pointing to the very building that I was examining. I nodded, squinting to just make out the outline of the belfry above the shop. "Why don't we check it out?"

I shrugged. We really didn't have anything better to do. With that, we made our way to the stairs, pausing only a moment to admire the fountain that was by the stairs and below where we would come out if we had gone through the door from first district. It had a pretty mural with some kind of floral pattern and three little protrusions that had a bell design on them. We also passed the two doors to the hotel that mom had said Sephiroth and Zack were staying at until they could find a place to stay.

One in the shop, we were surprised to be assaulted by tons of heartless. As we cut more and more down, another group would materialize. Luckily, our travels in other worlds had built up our stamina, and strength. I shuddered to think of how hard it would have been to get through it had we managed to stumble upon the building when we had first arrived.

Eventually, we got through the last of the horde and went out the door on the other side of the shop. It led to a little hollow in the wall that had a ladder just to our right. Sora leaped to it the second he laid eyes on it and began scaling immediately. Rolling my eyes at his eagerness, I followed behind him. The roof was open with only a few columns to mark where the edge was.

My brother was already at the bottom of the belfry, looking at the board blocking the entrance. We were able to remove it with a little effort. Hopefully we wouldn't get in trouble for accidentally smashing it to bits as we pushed and pulled on it to get it move.

"Do you think that the bell will ring if I pull this?" I nodded, watching the brunette reaching to pull the rope. The second that he hands touched it, mine were covering my ears. I remembered how loud the damn thing sounded in First District. There was no way hell that I wanted to get hit with the full brunt of that sound so close to the source.

As the ringing faded away, we could just make out the sound of stone grinding against stone. We quickly looked and saw that the mural on the fountain straight across from us was turning, changing to a scene that I couldn't quite make out from that distance.

"That's strange," I said, focusing on the stone that was starting to settle. Why would the fountain be connected to the bell like that? Whoever designed that sure had some unusual tastes. "Sora, there were three bells on that fountain. Why don't you ring it two more times so we can see what'll happen?"

"Sure." I covered my ears again as he pulled the rope yet again, keeping my gaze fixed on the fountain. As the bell chimed for the third time and the mural changed, it lit up. Water began to shoot up from the previously inactive nozzles. At last, the butterflies in the painting faded away revealing a glowing keyhole. "Roxas! It's the keyhole for this world!"

"Let's get down there and lock it then!" I yelled, already running. From what mom told us earlier, locking that thing with the keyblades would make it to where the heartless couldn't destroy the world itself and would cause them to thin out, making the world a little bit safer.

We both ran at top speed, jumping down to the lower level once we made it out of the Gismo Shop. Without missing a step, we straightened out and bolted to the fountain. Unfortunately, giant pieces of armor fell down, barely missing us once we were right in front of the fountain.

"Roxas!" "Sora!" We heard two voices yell as the armor pieces began to rise up. To our relief we saw Axel and Riku running to us. They managed to leap from the ledge a split second before the barrier that seemed to appear with every powerful heartless shimmered into existence. Using the armor that was still in the process of assembling itself as a springboard, they covered the rest of the distance between us and landed practically on top of us.

We didn't have time to catch up and check each other over. Already we could hear the stomping footsteps of the very armor that had come so close to killing my brother and me before.

Automatically, we all summoned our weapons and got into battle stance. Remembering the strategy that dad had yelled to us before, Sora and I charged, aiming for the torso. From the corner of my eye, I could see Riku focusing on the spinning hands, keeping them from my twin and me. Flames flashed all around us as Axel threw his chakram, distracting it and damaging it where he could.

After a few moments, and putting quite the hurting on the damn thing, I began thinking that it was a bit too easy. Then, with a powerful spin, it drove us back. Before we could gather ourselves and attack again, it flipped itself over, its hand and feet switching places, and its helmet taking on a more menacing appearance.

With the change came an increase in power and speed. It relentlessly attacked us, occasionally dismembering itself to attack us form multiple angles. Man did I hate being right so often.

Finally, we managed to surround the thing. With coordinated strikes we all jumped it. Riku focused on its legs, quickly darting to and fro to keep it confused while Axel targeted its arms. Sora and I alternated attacks. He would leap to hit it as high as he could, jump away and make room for me to pin around it to get at its other side. At last, limbs gone and severely weakened, we saw our chance and took it. All at once, we leaped and hit it with all we had, thrilled to see it freeze and then dissipate as a giant crystalline heart flew away from it.

"Well, that was exciting," Axel said, breaking the silence and gaining all of our attention. He was standing casually with his arms crossed grinning. His emerald eyes were focused on me, looking me over as discretely as he could. With a small smile of my own, I walked up to him, tilting my head back to maintain eye contact. Sora was doing the same with Riku.

"Are you guys okay?" I asked at last, resisting the urge to pat Axel down in search of injuries. The redhead's grin widened and he let out a hearty laugh before ruffling up my hair. I glared a little and tried to straighten the golden spikes.

"We're all better. It's going to take more than that to keep us down." I honestly tried to stay irritated, but I was just too relieved to see the man who saved my life up and about, no worse for wear, that I just couldn't manage it. In only seconds my scowl turned into a little smile.

"Now that, that's all taken care of," Riku began, staring behind us intently. "Shouldn't you guys be locking that keyhole?"

Sora and I blink in confusion for a second before we remembered what had drawn the Trinity Armor in the first place. Jumping to attention, we marched over to the fountain, checking to make sure the barrier that had kept us from it during the battle was indeed gone. It was nowhere to be found."

"I'll get this one," Sora said, summoning Kingdom Key and pointing it at the glowing hole. As before, a short burst of light shot from the magical weapon directly into the keyhole. With a quick sigh of relief, knowing that this world would be a little bit safer for our family as we traveled, we listened to the click. "So, what now?"

"We go see if the others are at the small house, I guess," I said with a shrug. I didn't see that there would be much more to discover in Second District, so doing more exploring would be pretty pointless. Not to mention that I was tired from the fight, and it would also make me relax even more to see our demon protectors resting. After all, it had only been less than a whole day since one of them was dying and the other had collapsed from exhaustion.

"Only the dark haired guy that has those demons sealed in him was at the shop when we woke up, so the others should be at the small house by now," Axel said cheerfully. Nodding in acknowledgement, we all turned to make our way to the Third District, marveling at how no heartless were popping up to try and steal our hearts. We knew that the quiet wouldn't last for long, so we tried to enjoy as much as we could before we found ourselves in front of our destination a few minutes later.

Axel was right. Everyone was already there, including our demon hosting grandmother. The Turk must have told them about the two demons waking up since no one seemed surprised to see them with us.

The house was crowded as we walked in. Yuffie sat atop the boxes and crates on the corner, while mom and dad stood brooding against the wall not too far from her. Gramps and grandma had their own corner, and Zack and Sephiroth stood in the middle of the room talking to Aeris who was sitting on the bed. All eyes focused on us as soon as we opened the door.

"You guys took a while," mom said, pushing off from the wall to greet us. He turned his eyes to the men standing behind us. "Did something happen? Vincent said that you two ran off in a hurry as soon as you woke up."

"Yeah," I said, sitting down to join Aeris on the bed. She immediately scooched over to make room for Sora to sit beside me. "We got the book to Merlin faster than we thought we would. Since you guys weren't here when we finished, we decided to check out Second District and found the keyhole for this world. That armor form before showed up to stop us from locking it. These two showed up in time to help us though. No one got hurt too badly."

The last part I said more for mom's piece of mind. I noticed the second that I mention the giant heartless that he stiffened up, eyes sharp as he scanned our figures for any major injuries. He and the others relaxed hearing that the keyhole was closed and that we were all okay except for a few bruises and minor scratches.

"Thank you boys," the scared brunette said, placing a hand on mine and my twin's shoulders. "This will help us out a lot in keeping this world safe until your journey is done." His sharp grey eyes then focused on the men who had moved to the foot of the bed. "And thank you two for protecting my boys."

"You don't need to thank us," Axel said, rubbing the back of his head and shifting his weight awkwardly. He also couldn't seem to look my adoptive parent in the eye. "They're a part of us. Our very souls, and hearts would be shattered if anything happened to them."

"All the same," Dad said, stepping away from the wall to stand beside his lover. This seemed to intimidate the redhead even more. Even Riku looked like he was getting to be pretty uncomfortable. "Thank you. You've been protecting them from the shadows this whole time, and we couldn't be more grateful."

"Well, boys," gramps breaking the awkward silence that had fallen over the room with ease. "Ah 'ave tha gummi installed fer ya, an ah threw in a navigation gummi too. Now y'all will be able ta warp ta any world y'all have already been ta, and get ta worlds further away."

"Thank you," Sora and I said at the same time, adhering to the manners that mom had literally beaten into heads since we were little.

"S'no problem." The piolet waved away our thanks. "Now, it's been a long day, and no more heartless should be botherin' us fer a while, so we should all head home an rest up."

The room was with approval for the plan and we all began to trickle out of the cramped house except for Aeris and Yuffie who actually lived there. (Sora and I had no idea where the second girl slept) Mom and dad took the lead as we made our way back home. Axel and Riku walked beside us, searching the shadows for anything that might try to attack us.

"Mom and dad sure like you," Sora said after a while, no longer able to take the silence. Both men seemed confused as he said that, brows furrowing.

"Are you sure?" Axel asked quietly, trying not to be heard by our parents. He didn't seem to realize that dad had enhanced hearing, so the whispering was pretty pointless. "I mean, they were scowling at us the whole time we were talking to them."

It took Sora and me a moment to realize that the other two weren't used to our usually stoic looking parents. We had been around them so long that we could easily see the subtle changes in their expressions and interpret them for what they really were. Where most people saw maybe the barest twitch of the corner of their mouth, we saw the grin that it was meant to be. Light chuckles sounded to us light full bellied laughter from the two men. The demons just needed to learn where to look.

"You'll be able to read them better eventually," I said, with a casual shrug before walking through the door to our new home.

Mom and dad were already in the small living room. Mom was holding some spare pillows and blankets that he had scrounged up from somewhere or another. With the lightest flick of the wrist, he threw them to the demons and gave them a stern look. It must have seemed like he was glaring death at them from their perspective.

"You guys can stay here while the boys are here, but you will be in separate rooms," he said in a no nonsense tone. "While my husband and I are grateful to you guys for protecting our boys and are willing to let you travel with them to other worlds, we don't know you well enough to let you sleep in the same room as them. Do you understand?" He was met with silent nods. "Good. Since we don't have any spare rooms, you two will have to crash on the couch and recliner. The kitchen is through that door over there, the bathroom is down the hall, and mine and Cloud's room is the first door on the right. The boys' room is further down, so we will hear you if you try to join them later on tonight, so I would advise against sneaking around."

"Yes sir," they said, looking a bit pale at the obvious threat in the lion like man's voice.

"Very well. Make yourselves comfortable, but get to bed soon. The worlds need you, so you'll need you start off as soon as Donald and Goofy return. Goodnight."

We all bade the man goodnight as he left to join dad in their room. Sora and I knew that if they didn't hear us head for our rooms soon, they would just come out and drag us to our beds, so we turned to our soul mates to bid them a good night as well.

"As mom said, make yourselves comfortable, and try to get some rest." They nodded. Before we turned around to head off to our room, my twin and I gave them one last look, trying to convey how happy we were to see them better. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," they said back, already heading to their chosen piece of furniture. Sora and I quickly made our way to our room and got changed for the night. Tomorrow was a whole new day. There was no telling what it would bring, but we felt much better about that unknown than we had in a while. We knew that from then on, we would have those two demons beside us to help share our burden of saving the worlds and stopping the darkness. Whatever was to come our way, they would be there to support and protect us. That thought alone made us fall asleep faster, and more soundly than we had since the islands had been destroyed.


End file.
